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The 

Technique of Play Writing 



BY 

CHARLTON ANDREWS 

author of 

"the drama to-day," 

"his majesty the fool," etc. 



Introduction by J. Berg Esenwein 



THE WRITER'S LIBRARY 

EDITED BY J. BERG ESENWEIN 



THE HOME CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL 

SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1915 

The Home Correspondence Schooi 

all rights reserved 



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DEC 31 1915 



<S>CU418285 



To MY WIFE 



Table of Contents 

Page 

Author's Foreword ........ ix 

The Modern Play: An Introduction . , . xvii 

Glossary xxvii 

Chapter I — The Play and Its Writer . . i 

Chapter II — The Theme 9 

Chapter III — The Elements 24 

Chapter IV — The Plot and Some of Its Fun- 
damentals 37 

Chapter V — Some Further Plot Fundamentals 48 

Chapter VI — Outlining the Complication . 63 

Chapter VII — The Exposition 75 

Chapter VIII — The Management of Prepara- 
tion in the Plot 85 

Chapter IX — Suspense and Surprise ... 94 

Chapter X — Climax and the Ending . . . 106 

Chapter XI — Devices and Conventions . . 118 

Chapter XII — The Characters 133 

Chapter XIII — Dramatis Persons and Life . 144 

Chapter XIV — Plot-and-Character Harmony 158 

Chapter XV — The Dialogue 166 

Chapter XVI — Kinds of Plays 181 



V1U THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Page 

Chapter XVII — The One- Act Play .... 194 

Chapter XVIII — Scenario Making and Me- 
chanical Processes 201 

Chapter XIX — Self-Criticism . . . . . 212 

Chapter XX — Placing the Play .... 226 

APPENDICES 

Appendix A — Specimen Scenario 235 

Appendix B — Specimen Pages of Play Manu- 
script 249 

Appendix C — List of Plays 252 

Appendix D — List of Helpful Books . . . 256 

Appendix E — Abbey Theatre Advice to Play- 
wrights 258 

General Index 260 



Author's Foreword 

Although there are several recent treatises on the art 
of writing plays, none of them, generally speaking, is pre- 
cisely a text-book of the subject — "dogmatic in theory, 
so as not to muddle the student with alternatives before 
he has grasped any one rule; detailed in the analysis of 
examples and in the statement of principles, so that he 
may see just how a certain thing is done; full of the little 
maxims and tricks of the trade; and supported at every 
point with practical exercises. " The present volume is 
not offered as one conforming in every detail to the 
foregoing standard. Nevertheless, it aims to embody 
at least some of these characteristics, in the hope that 
it may prove of service as a guide to him who would 
make his first experiments in the art of dramatic compo- 
sition. 

It is obvious that in all primers, after the first authori- 
tative one, much repetition of admitted truth is inevitable. 
Unless the writer be one of the perverse whose chief 
pleasure in life is derived from stout denials of all the 
established principles of art, he will need to refer to the 
dicta of Aristotle, of Hegel perhaps, of Brunetiere certainly, 
of Lessing, Sarcey, Dumas fils, Hugo, and a score of other 
critics and dramatists foreign and domestic, when he is 
laying down the fundamentals of the play-writing craft. 
There be those of lesser breeds than such leaders in art 
and criticism who, having once restated these principles — 



X THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

sometimes without credit — have come thereafter to regard 
them as their own. Of course, their claims to proprietary- 
rights in these many truisms are at best about as valid as 
would be an assertion of copyright on the multiplication 
table, announced by the author of a new elementary 
arithmetic. No acknowledgment can be due to such 
compilers. 

In a preliminary way, it will be well to survey quickly 
some of the pretty generally acknowledged foundation- 
theories first formulated by the great trail-blazers of 
dramatic art. 

Action is the soul of tragedy, or of drama generally, 
asserted Aristotle. This action means a conflict of wills, 
Hegel and others hinted, and Brunetiere succinctly de- 
clared. Drama deals with the cruces of existence when 
duty and inclination come to the grapple, Stevenson 
repeated. Periods of great national vitality have accord- 
ingly given birth to the greatest drama, added Sarcey — 
and others. 

That the theatre is a place of illusion, based on many 
conventions, is an obvious matter which dozens of critics 
have emphasized. 

Dramatic composition, like every other sort, must 
recognize Spencer's doctrine of the economy of attention. 
Stage dialogue, for instance, must be divested of the 
tautologies of real life. 

In the theatre the appeal is primarily to the eye. A 
gesture, a facial expression, is often far more eloquent 
than much speech. Actions speak louder than words, as 



AUTHOR S FOREWORD XI 

we say. Hence plays start well that start with their 
essential conflicts visualized in action. 

A play must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

Its characters reveal themselves through what they 
say and do, and their speech and conduct must harmonize 
with the author's evident estimate of his personages. 

Gozzi, Schiller, and others have tabulated all possible 
plot-materials and found only thirty-six different situa- 
tions. 

The most telling dramatic action is that which takes 
place within the hearts and souls of men and women. 

The theatre is a democratic institution, and coopera- 
tion on the part of the audience is the first essential of 
success. 

The drama of to-day differs from the drama of other 
times chiefly in that it deals with commonplace subject- 
matter in a realistic way. 

We might prolong this catalogue of familiar generalities 
almost indefinitely. Indeed, for the purposes of this 
treatise it will be necessary in a sense to list the majority 
of them as we proceed. Practically every one has been 
stated or restated by virtually all writers on the drama; 
therefore as I have said, it is difficult to agree that any of 
them is private property. Moreover, it is surprising how 
readily these matters lend themselves to phraseological 
similarity. Once an axiom has been well said, few writers 
find it worth while to try to say it otherwise than in time- 
honored language. I could quote interesting parallels ad 
libitum. To cite one very brief example: 



xii THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

"It is the convention of opera," writes one critic, "that 
there exists a race of human beings whose natural speech 
is song." 

And another asserts, "The Wagnerian opera is written 
and composed about a race of beings whose only mode of 
vocal communication is that of song." 

Much longer and consequently more striking paral- 
lelisms are the easiest things in the world to find. They 
abound in all criticism — particularly in that of the drama; 
and they are, I dare say, in the majority of instances in- 
significant. At all events, primers dealing with the stage 
and its art cannot hope to avoid them, any more than 
such works, to be of practical value, can fail to take into 
account the theatre's most recent developments. 

"The drama," says Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, "is not 
stationary but progressive." And he adds, "By this I do 
not mean that it is always improving; what I do mean is 
that its conditions are always changing, and that every 
dramatist whose ambition it is to produce live plays is 
absolutely bound to study carefully the conditions that 
hold good for his own day and generation." 

This quotation serves here in a double capacity. In the 
first place, it illustrates what has just been emphasized. 
The suggestion is not a new one — and manifestly the 
brilliant British playwright was not offering it as a dis- 
covery. "The theatre," wrote Sarcey many years ago, 
"like all the other arts, lives only by virtue of incessant 
change, of modelling itself upon the dominant taste of 
each generation. Transformation does not mean deca- 



Xlll 



dence; I dare say — and all those who know the theatre 
will agree with me — that our time has been, on the con- 
trary, one of the most fruitful in great dramatic works." 
In the second place, the quotation expresses the obvious 
reason why, in the present work, the aim is to consider 
the subject of play writing from the viewpoint not only 
of its immemorial traditions, but also of its most recent 
phases, and so to try to present fundamental principles 
with the greatest possible amount of accuracy and sim- 
plicity and a constant view to their practical application 
in dramatic composition. 

Now, it is well known that recent years have constituted 
a sort of "open season" for radicals fond of gunning for 
dramatic technique. Exceptions to the rules have been 
greatly emphasized in a specious effort to upset the funda- 
mentals altogether. Aristotle has been made a universal 
target — and has reappeared after each fusillade manifestly 
unscathed. Perhaps in an effort to contribute a new 
idea as well as to gain the support of enthusiastic reformers, 
critics have fired broadsides at Brunetiere — though to no 
perceptible effect. In the words of the familiar war report 
of the day, the situation remains unchanged. It is true 
that certain minor, nonessential traditions of the drama 
have become obsolete or have undergone a gradual altera- 
tion; but the essentials are, and have of late been re- 
peatedly demonstrating that they remain, exactly as they 
have continued since the age of Pericles and before. 

As a matter of fact, the alterations in the technique of 
the drama prove upon examination to be mere shifts of 



XIV THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

emphasis. The stage has, for the time being, at least, done 
away with such devices as the soliloquy and the aside. 
(Who achieved this all-important reform, I have no idea. 
It appears that there exist in America two "schools" 
founded upon divergent views of this mighty matter: the 
"school" that asserts Ibsen, and the "school" that insists 
Edison, gave the death-blow to the soliloquy.) The 
emphasis upon action has been largely shifted from the 
merely physical to the psychological aspects of conflict. 
Undoubtedly the true doctrine in this matter is that both 
sorts of action should coexist in the drama, and that the 
physical should body forth the psychological. Further- 
more, many experiments have been made in plotless, 
actionless, emotionless "drama," practically all of which 
have failed in the theatre or have achieved at best a 
negligible, non-dramatic success. 

In spite of all efforts to dispense with them in the drama, 
conflict, climax, character portrayed in action, humor, 
pathos, pantomime, preparation, suspense, surprise, and 
a score of other such fundamentals remain unchanged. 
And all the many desperate efforts to redefine the drama, 
so as to substitute for the dynamic and the emotional the 
static and the intellectual have proved vain. The student 
of dramatic composition need have no fear on this point. 
If there is no technique of the drama with reasonably 
positive principles to rely upon, then there is no technique 
of any sort of composition; then unity, coherence, and 
emphasis are mere idle chatter, and we may as well 
abandon all thought- and writing-processes to the de- 
lirious gibberings of the ultra-futuristic. 



author's FOREWORD XV 

Of course, there is, after all, only one cardinal rule of 
dramatic technique: Be interesting. First act clear, last 
act short, and the whole interesting, said Dumas. Or, 
as Cosmo Hamilton and others have negatived it: Never 
be dull. All the rest of the technique of the drama merely 
concerns itself with how to be interesting. Throughout 
the long history of the stage, playwrights have found that 
there are certain ways of attaining, maintaining, and 
augmenting interest. These discoveries, from which have 
developed so-called rules — though they must not be 
regarded as rigid regulations — are all in consonance with 
recognized laws of psychology. Since the only way to 
interest a human being in your product, of whatever sort, 
is to adapt it in its appeal to the workings of his mind and 
heart, it wilL be found that the really fundamental princi- 
ples are few, for the simple reason that the basic laws of 
psychology are not many. 

When one hears that such and such a play, with a 
seemingly novel plan, has upset the rules of dramatic 
technique, examination will usually show that it is only 
pseudo-rules that have suffered; "rules" based on sweep- 
ing generalizations uttered before the class of situa- 
tions to be covered had been thoroughly canvassed. 
"You must never keep a secret from your audience," the 
theatre pundits have told us sagely and repeatedly, only 
to have to modify their dictum so often that they finally 
take refuge in the feeble assertion that all rules for the 
drama are only temporary and — autres temps, autres 
mmurs. 

The real rules of the technique of play writing merely 



XVI THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

insist that you must early gain the emotional interest of 
your audience, hold it and heighten it till the close, and 
then dismiss it satisfied. Plans and devices which experi- 
ence has shown to be reliable, if not always immutable, 
furnish the working basis for this treatise. 

The author with pleasure takes this occasion for record- 
ing his indebtedness to the editor of this series of text- 
books, Dr. J. Berg Esenwein, for valuable suggestions, 
the admirable Introduction, and the series of questions 
and exercises he has contributed out of his long experience 
with fiction writing of every sort. 

Charlton Andrews. 
New York City, 
August, 1915. 



The Modern Play 

AN INTRODUCTION 
By J. Berg Esenwein 

Dramatic art at its best is the apotheosis of all the arts 
combined in one; and in such measure as the play-maker 
understands and believes this truth will his eyes be open 
to the wonderful store of material which invites him to build 
it into that consummately satisfying thing, an effective 
modern play. 

First of all — and it must always be first of all — is the 
art of the play itself as a whole, considered apart from 
mere accessories. While modern stage-writing is less 
rhetorical, less poetical, less literary than that of earlier 
centuries, its artistic merit stands out in easy competition 
with any other one product of twentieth century art. 
When done supremely well, its solely literary qualities of 
dialogue, characterization, and plot-progress bring it into 
worthy comparison with other fictional forms. But its 
literary qualities do not stop here, for just as a good song- 
poem must be judged by its fitness to be linked with 
music, so that play is best whose theme, situations, plot- 
development, characters, dialogue, and whole atmosphere 
most perfectly suggest all that goes to make up an artistic 
stage production. Since public performance is its chief 
end, for that purpose it is conceived and its working out 
is directed. In precisely the same spirit as realism in the 
novel lays stronger emphasis on the truthful characteriza- 



XV1U THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

tion of the people in the story than on the mere literary 
quality of their speech, dialogue in the play should be 
literary only so far as an effective performance of the 
piece will permit. 

Growing out of this fact that the modern play is meant 
primarily to be acted, and in most cases to appear in 
printed form not at all, is another condition: The first 
great aid to the apotheosis of the play as art is the power 
of trained vocal expression. The lines of the drama, whose 
"lilting fluency flowers every now and then into a phrase 
of golden melody" — to quote a charming, if mixed, meta- 
phor of Mr. Clayton Hamilton's — need an adequate 
reading to show their full value. 

Add to the effect of the "word fitly spoken" the mag- 
netic presence of an impressive personality, and to this 
add again the delight of a subtle phrase delicately inter- 
preted by one who has given the lines a hundred-fold more 
consideration than we could ourselves usually give to the 
printed page, and we begin to see the artistic values of 
the play piling up. Yet we have only begun the evalua- 
tion. To see, and not merely imagine, the characters in 
the play working out some action; to catch in one posture, 
one gesture, one look, more than the novelist might con- 
vey in a page; to feel that two, three, a dozen characters 
— each speaking to the eye by his dress, and gait, and 
behavior — are actually living their lives before us, is 
immeasurably more real-seeming than to meet them one 
at a time in a book. Shattered Ophelia by the water's 
edge lives in our sympathies when her every word has 
been forgotten. 



THE MODERN PLAY — AN INTRODUCTION XIX 

In setting, too, we find one more, and a very great, 
addition to the apotheosis. In the modern play the realis- 
tic set is no longer an accessory but part of the dramatist's 
conception of the story he is telling in sound, action, form, 
and color to those who listen and look. It is a far cry from 
the sceneless and uncovered stage of Shakespeare's era to 
the perfect illusions of present-day inscenierung, the child of 
Science wedded with Art. The artistic beauty and reality 
of setting, the carefully placed dramatic emphasis, the 
essential harmony of scene and tone, the effect of sug- 
gested atmosphere, are proving wonderful helpers in the 
presentation of the play as an artistic whole. Indeed, 
even a new art — stage designing — has leaped forth to 
help the scene designer produce his effects at the call of 
the playwright. How notable has been the progress in 
this field alone may be read in Mr. Hiram Kelly Moder- 
well's recent book, "The Theatre of Today." 

The kindred arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, 
and interior and exterior decorating, all bring gifts to aid 
dramatic presentment. Incidental music has a delicate 
share, too, and that playwright is happy whose producer 
lays no more than due emphasis on the contributary 
musical accompaniment. 

But modern stage art owes more to the new effects of 
decorative and symbolic color and light than to any other 
accessories. From the Elizabethan daylight performances, 
through the oil-lamp period with its feeble lights focused 
on the stage apron, down to the gas footlights and over- 
head lights, was a long road; yet the miraculous schemes 
of electric lighting in vogue today mark a still greater 



XX THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

advance — they have created a new stage and a new stage 
art. No longer need the author's lines forsake the story of 
the play in order to tell of approaching twilight or herald 
the rise of a storm. When day dawns with all its soften- 
ing shadows and crimsoning hill tops to make nature 
lovely, we now see in " As You Like It" a shepherd leading 
his flock of sheep down the glade and feel ourselves to be 
on the scene with the time and atmosphere attuned to the 
mood of the action. 

Thus the magic of trained human voices, the charm and 
reality of the actor's representative and interpretive art, 
the truthful setting which emphasizes yet does not 
obtrude the essentials of time and place and circumstance, 
the harmonies and contrasts of color, the beauty or the 
studied ugliness of form, the eloquence of designed move- 
ment, the contribution of music, and the variation of light 
and darkness, unite with the lines of the play to produce 
what I have ventured to call the apotheosis of all the arts 
centred in this one. Singly, each of these arts may find 
greater and more complete expression elsewhere, but 
nowhere else do they so wonderfully work together. 

Now, all this is emphasized not so much to show, what 
we all admit, that the stage of today is a new place, but 
to stress the importance of recognizing the new materials 
for play-making. In other words, the efficient play- 
writer is more than his title explicitly shows: he is a 
play-wright. As such, he is concerned with all the possi- 
bilities of present-day stage-craft, for while the installa- 
tion and management of "effects" belong to the pro- 



THE MODERN PLAY — AN INTRODUCTION XXI 

ducer and the stage director, the playwright must be 
aware of his resources and reckon with each one of them 
when he devises the means by which his story is to be 
presented. 

The new stage-art, therefore, is not only an asset to the 
playwright, but a liability as well. By so much as his 
play may be helped by the use of "effects," will their 
absence or misuse mar the production. For who must put 
them into the play? It will not do to suppose that Mr. 
Aladdin Producer will supply all these helps and thus trans- 
mute a manuscript into a golden play. But, not every 
play lends itself to scenic effects, and to cloak a weak fable 
with an elaborate staging would smother it; and besides, 
the true, the best, use of setting and its artistic accessories 
is by no means always an elaborate one, but is oftenest 
simple, and always unobstrusively secondary to the play 
itself. It is for the author to plan the contrasts and har- 
monies of time, place, and incident, invent a use for prop- 
erties that will most effectively show the action of the story, 
and so devise his climaxes that the characters may be seen 
in striking relationships both to each other and to the set- 
ting, in part and entire; but how these physical matters 
may best be handled is at last the problem of the stage 
director. The essential point is, the producer and the 
director must have picture-inspiring materials wherewith 
to work. 

That all the literary arts have much in common is 
obvious, and equally so that the novel and the drama 
are of all the most closely allied. In both we have 



XX11 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

the same stress on plotted story and on characters in 
contrast as they work out the story in a given setting. 
The play, too, in further similarity to the novel, often 
exemplifies a theme, and is designed to give a unified 
picture of life. 

But he who attempts the play must forget the primary 
appeal of the novelist, which is to the fancy, and visualize 
everything for the spectator — the dramatist's appeal is 
directly to the eye, and if he makes any demands on the 
reflective and imaging faculties of his audience it is only 
in a secondary way, through what they see and feel. 

This brings up the fundamental question, so often dis- 
cussed and yet so hard to answer: What is dramatic? 

The perennial nature of this inquiry is not chiefly 
theoretical for the playwright, as it is for the critic, be- 
cause the maker of plays is momently confronted with the 
problem of what sort of material he must choose and how 
he must handle it so as to make his play more than a 
series of pictures of life. And it is precisely here that the 
differentiation between dramatic and non-dramatic must 
be made — it is the difference between a plotted story and 
a literary sketch: the former hinges its action on a crisis, 
a tangle, a cross-purpose, a struggle, in the affairs of its 
chief characters, and then shows how that crisis is brought 
to its solution; the latter is a mere picture of static emo- 
tion — and as such may be most effective, be it said. 

The essence of the dramatic in a situation lies in action 
and counter-action ; not merely in action, but in both. The 
initial action may arise in the inner man — in the will, or in 
the emotions — but it must not end there. Unless the mo- 



THE MODERN PLAY — AN INTRODUCTION XX111 

tivating force is strong enough to make feelings and will 
come to a grapple with some antagonist, whether seen or 
unseen, material or immaterial, the impulse dies. Then, 
indeed, we might have the motif for a literary sketch, a 
lyric poem, or a painted picture; but for a drama, never. 

On the other hand, let the man push his impulse first 
to resolve and later to action, and let that action run 
counter, say, to his own nature, his training, his surround- 
ings, his friends, or his enemies, thus resulting in a definite 
issue — then we have the beginnings of a struggle whose 
outworkings, as Mr. Andrews has clearly pointed out in 
this volume, make the very heart of drama. 

But, further, there must be counter-action. A walk-over 
makes a poor fight, in a play as in a baseball game. Hence 
the action must arouse opposition worth wrestling with, 
and whose outcome seems so significant to the spectators 
that they more or less consciously take sides. The feeblest 
dramatic action in the world is that which arouses in no 
one a single pang when defeat comes to one side or the 
other. 

By all odds the greatest number of successful plays, 
however, begin t'other way about: the action starts not 
from within the man but from without, moves upon the 
will of the person attacked, and arouses him to opposition, 
which in turn brings out greater effort against him — and 
so on, shuttlecock and battledore, until the high point in 
the struggle is reached, when, by some force expected or 
unexpected, the issue is decided and a quick aftermath is 
either shown or suggested. 

Mr. Andrews has dwelt at sufficient length on this essen- 



XXIV THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

tial element of struggle in the drama, but I may be per- 
mitted a further word on the reasons why the spectators 
feel such deep interest in the contest. 

Mr. Clayton Hamilton has pointed out, in an interesting 
chapter on "The Psychology of Theatre Audiences," 1 
that the drama is written for "a crowd," composed of 
many kinds of folk, but mostly women, who are prone to 
sink their normal differences in a common interest; and 
further, "that characters are interesting to a crowd only 
in those crises of emotion that bring them to the grapple." 
This is quite true, so far as it goes, but something more 
than the joy of witnessing a struggle must be found to 
account for the deep, partisan, and often unmoral interest 
felt by an audience in the struggle on which the play 
hinges, particularly an audience in which women are in 
the majority. 

Other critics, notably M. Brunetiere, as Mr. Hamilton 
observes, have insisted on the essential nature of struggle 
in the drama, but I do not remember seeing it noted that 
the element of danger to a character engaged in, or concerned 
in, a struggle is the crucial point of interest for the spectators. 

The skillful dramatist rarely begins with a struggle but 
uses every device short of a tour de force to win interest 
and sympathy for his chief character; so that when the 
issue is joined, sides will have been already taken by the 
on-lookers, both on the stage and in the audience; for the 
opponent — the "villain," in old parlance — must "de- 
serve" little sympathy, if not actual reprobation, from the 
judges of the contest. 

x The Theory of the Theatre. 



THE MODERN PLAY — AN INTRODUCTION XXV 

But the dramatist goes further — he sees to it that the 
object striven for is of importance, not only to the con- 
testants but in the estimation of the audience. And it 
must be worthily fought for by the hero, since he must 
retain the sympathy he has won. 

But over and above all this lies the element of danger. 
What will victory win, is rarely so poignant a question as 
what defeat will cost. The enthralling thing in "The 
Easiest Way" was the terrible alternative that opened 
up before the young woman; though it must be said that 
what chiefly revolted the audience was that Miss Starr 
had put so much charm into the character she essayed 
that when the girl chose "Broadway" one felt that so 
sweet a spirit could not have made so low a choice. The 
play was well motivated, but the acting was hot down to 
the level of a woman who was weak enough to fall a second 
time. 

It is the element of reward and penalty — of danger, in 
other words — that forms yet another big plot-factor in the 
play: that of suspense. Of this, too, Mr. Andrews has 
written effectively. The joys of reward are great only to 
those who face the danger of loss or non-attainment. What 
the defeat of the protagonist may mean is what makes 
the fight "for blood." We almost know the outcome — yet 
we tremble! It is the championship games that count, 
for defeat means no "look in" for the finals. 

We are nowadays more ready to believe that books such 
as the present treatise are of serious value to those who 
would master an art, yet there are still those in high places 



XXVI THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

who maintain that experience is the only teacher. But is 
it not plain that principles gathered by induction, after 
fairly observing a large number of cases, ought to merit 
careful consideration? And is it not worth while to be 
told how successful writers have secured their effects? 
No one, I suppose, would seriously maintain that students, 
however faithful, could be taught to write any piece of 
creative literary work without possessing an alert mind, 
some degree of native endowment for invention and self- 
expression, and a well developed taste for the art to be 
essayed. But, given these, together with a teachable 
spirit, and it seems to me that the rest is patient labor, 
under intelligent instruction. The danger of unguided 
practise in dramatic art lies here: the playwright may fail 
to discriminate between defects in popular plays, defects 
which are mitigated by unusually competent or popular 
actors — and the meritorious points in those same plays : as 
in "Ready Money," for instance. One strong dramatic 
situation is likely to gloss over the essential weakness of 
another situation in the same play. The public likes 
what it likes, almost or quite irrespective of adjacent 
things it does not like, therefore strong approval for the 
one case begets a tolerance for the other. 

So in taking up the study of dramatic art, whether for 
the larger enjoyment of the play as a spectator or with the 
purpose of dramaturgic writing, I can think of no guid- 
ance so helpful as the sort offered by the present volume. 



Glossary 



Action. — "The thing represented as done in a drama; the event or 
series of events, real or imaginary, forming the subject of a fable, 
poem, or other composition." (Murray's English Dictionary.) 
"Action," asserts Professor Butcher, commenting on Aristotle, 
"embraces not only the deeds, the incidents, the situations, but also 
the mental processes, and the motives which underlie the outward 
events or which result from them. It is the compendious expression 
for all these forces working together toward a definite end." 

Antagonist. — The chief opposer of the protagonist (which see). 

Aside. — A speech spoken within sight of the other actors, but obvi- 
ously not for their ears. 

Catastrophe. — "The change or revolution which produces the 
conclusion or final event of a dramatic piece." (Johnson.) The 
denouement (which see). 

Character. — "A personality invested with distinctive attributes 
and qualities, by a novelist or dramatist. (Murray.) 

Characterize. — "To describe or delineate the character or 
peculiar qualities of a person or thing." (Murray.) 

Climax. — "The highest point of anything reached by gradual 
ascent; the culmination, height, acme, apex. (Murray.) The sum- 
mit of interest; the point of greatest emotional tension. 

Comedy. — "A stage play of a light and amusing character, with a 
happy conclusion to its plot." "That branch of the drama which 
adopts a humorous or familiar style, and depicts laughable characters 
and incidents." (Murray.) In high, or true, comedy, the plot is 
governed by the characters; and human nature, rather than incident, 
is stressed. 

Complication. — The interweaving of the strands of action so as 
to bring out the struggle. 

Connotation. — "That which is implied in a word [a look, a 
gesture, a situation, etc.,] in addition to its essential or primary 
meaning." (Murray.) 



XXVU1 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Crisis. — "A vitally important or decisive stage in the progress of 
anything; a turning-point; also, a state of affairs in which a decisive 
change for better or worse is imminent." (Murray.) 

Denouement. — "The final unravelling of the complications of a 
plot in a drama, novel, etc.; the catastrophe; . . . the final solu- 
tion or issue of a complication, difficulty, or mystery." (Murray.) 

Drama. — A story, containing a fundamental element of conflict; 
composed of a unified sequence of events; having a beginning, a 
middle, and an end; and told in action — usually by means of dia- 
logue — by the personages taking part in it. 

Dramaturgy. — "Dramatic composition; the dramatic art." 
(Murray.) 

Episode. — "A digression in a play, separable from the main sub- 
ject, yet arising naturally from it." (Murray.) 

Exposition. — "The part of the play in which the theme or 
subject is opened out." (Webster's Dictionary.) The conveyance to 
the audience of preliminary information necessary to a comprehension 
of what is to follow. 

Fable. — "The plot or story of a play." (Murray.) 

Farce. — "A dramatic work which has for its sole object to excite 
laughter." (Murray.) A play, chiefly of plot, farced, or stuffed, with 
ludicrous situations. 

Genre. — "Kind; sort; style." (Murray.) 

Incident. — "A distinct piece of action in a play." (Murray.) 

Intrigue. — "The plot of a play . . . ; a complicated scheme 
of designs, actions, and events." (Webster.) 

Invention. — "The devising of a subject, idea, or method of treat- 
ment, by exercise of the intellect or imagination; 'the choice and 
production of such objects as are proper to enter into the composi- 
tion of a work of art.' " (Murray.) 

Logic. — "Something that tends to convince as completely as 
reasoning; anything that as an antecedent determines what must 



GLOSSARY XXIX 

follow; as, the logic of the situation made surrender inevitable. 
(Webster,) 

Melodrama. — "A dramatic piece characterized by sensational 
incident and violent appeals to the emotions, but with a happy end- 
ing." (Murray.) In melodrama plot takes precedence over char- 
acterization. 

Mise en scene. — " The necessary preparations, as scenery, proper- 
ties, etc., for the representation of a play; stage setting; also, the 
arrangement of the scenery and players in a scene; scene." (Web- 
ster.) 

Plot. — "The arrangement of the incidents." (Aristotle.) The 
plan or scheme of a play, resultant on the interweaving and subse- 
quent disentangling of the strands of action. 

Protagonist. — "The chief personage in a drama." (Murray.) 

Property. — "Any portable article, as an article of costume or 
furniture, used in acting a play; a stage requisite, appurtenance, or 
accessory." (Murray.) 

Realism. — "Close resemblance to what is real; fidelity of repre- 
sentation, rendering the precise details of the real thing or scene." 
(Murray.) 

Scenario. — "A sketch or outline of the plot of a play, giving par- 
ticulars of the scenes, situations, etc." (Murray.) 

Situation. — "A group of circumstances; a posture of affairs; 
specifically, in theatrical art, a crisis or critical point in the action of 
a play." (Century Dictionary.) 

Story. — "The plot or intrigue of a drama." (Century.) 

Tragedy. — "That form of the drama which represents a somber 
or a pathetic character involved in a situation of extremity or despera- 
tion by the force of an unhappy passion." (Century.) The spectacle 
of an inadequate struggle against an invincible and relentless antago- 
nist or overwhelming force. In tragedy the plot is subsidiary to the 
characterization. 



The art — the great and fascinating and most difficult art — of the 
modern dramatist is nothing else than to achieve that compression 
of life which the stage undoubtedly demands without falsification. 
If Stevenson had ever mastered that art — and I do not question that 
if he had properly conceived it he had it in him to master it — he might 
have found the stage a gold mine, but he would have found, too, that 
it is a gold mine which cannot be worked in a smiling, sportive, half- 
contemptuous spirit, but only in the sweat of the brain, and with 
every mental nerve and sinew strained to its uttermost. He would 
have known that no ingots are to be got out of this mine, save after 
sleepless nights, days of gloom and discouragement, and other days, 
again, of feverish toil, the result of which proves in the end to be 
misapplied and has to be thrown to the winds. When you sit in your 
stall at the theatre and see a play moving across the stage, it all seems 
so easy and natural, you feel as though the author had improvised it. 
The characters, being, let us hope, ordinary human beings, say noth- 
ing very remarkable, nothing, you think, — thereby paying the author 
the highest possible compliment, — that might not quite well have 
occurred to you. When you take up a playbook (if ever you do take 
one up) it strikes you as being a very trifling thing — a mere insub- 
stantial pamphlet beside the imposing bulk of the latest six-shilling 
novel. Little do you guess that every page of the play has cost more 
care, severer mental tension, if not more actual manual labor, than 
any chapter of a novel, though it be fifty pages long. It is the height 
of the author's art, according to the old maxim, that the ordinary 
spectator should never be clearly conscious of the skill and travail 
that have gone to the making of the finished product. But the artist 
who would achieve a like feat must realize its difficulties, or what are 
his chances of success? — Arthur Wing Pinero, Robert Louis Steven- 
son: The Dramatist, in the Critic, 1903. 



CHAPTER I 



THE PLAY AND ITS WRITER 

Let us ask this direct question of every man and woman who 
reads these pages: Have you taken any pains to satisfy yourself 
that you possess this Inborn Talent? If not, do so without delay, 
before you scatter futile ink over another sheet of wasted paper. 
And it is not a question of having or not having the creative 
instinct, but of having it in sufficient degree to make its develop- 
ment really worth while. For the Inborn Talent in a writer 
may be compared to the grade of ore in a mine — the question 
is not simply whether there is any precious metal there at all, 
but whether it is present in paying quantities. It is well to find 
out, if you can, just how richly your talent will assay, and then 
work it accordingly. — Frederic Taber Cooper, The Crafts- 
manship of Writing. 

I would not willingly say one word which might discourage 
those who are attracted to this branch of literature; on the con- 
trary, I would encourage them in every possible way. One de- 
sires, however, that they should approach their work at the out- 
set with the same serious and earnest appreciation of its im- 
portance and its difficulties with which they undertake the study 
of music and painting. I would wish, in short, that from the 
very beginning their minds should be fully possessed with the 
knowledge that Fiction [of which genus the drama is, of course, 
a species] is an Art, and that, like all other arts, it is governed 
by certain laws, methods, and rules, which it is their first business 
to learn. — Sir Walter Besant, The Art of Fiction. 

"A play," declares Mr. H. Granville Barker, "is any- 
thing that can be made effective upon the stage of a theatre 
by human agency. And I am not sure," he adds, in revolu- 



2 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

tionary good measure, "that this definition is not too 
narrow." 

To most people, however, the definition that is pos- 
sibly too narrow would seem amply comprehensive. 
At any rate, in spite even of Mr. Barker's earnest 
efforts to prove his proposition by means of homemade 
examples, the playgoing public continues to differentiate, 
if somewhat hazily, between "a play" and mere wise, 
verbose, or witty dialogues, or simple galleries of passive 
types. 

After all, even if Aristotle, being human and not 
omniscient, did err in the matter of the ten pounds of 
lead, which Galileo proved would not fall a whit faster 
than a single pound of the same metal, still the Stagyrite 
was and remains fairly sound in the less scientific, more 
aesthetic matter of the drama, in which he was naturally 
somewhat more adept. Moreover Mr. Barker — and 
others — have not succeeded in demolishing the Aristo- 
telian view with quite the same degree of success that 
attended Galileo's experimentation. 

Fundamentals of the Drama 

Aristotle, then, in discussing the nature of a play, 
insisted primarily upon plot. "Drama" etymologically 
indicates action; and the action in a play must, first of 
all, tell a story. This includes a unified sequence of 
events, having a beginning, a middle, and an end, and is 
represented by means of individuals imitating the person- 
ages taking part in the story. 



THE PLAY AND ITS WRITER 3 

Story and people, therefore, are two fundamental ele- 
ments of a play. They depend upon each other — in fact, 
the delicacy and the harmony of their inter-relations 
present the main problem of the dramatist. For it should 
be noted that neither element alone is sufficient. Story, 
indeed, cannot exist without people, or at least symbols 
of people; while people merely, not involved in any story, 
cannot constitute a play. "Drama," says Professor A. 
W. Ward, "is not reached till the imitation or representa- 
tion extends to action."" 

- As without a plot there can be no drama, so without a 
procedure from cause to effect there can be no plot. The 
third fundamental to be remembered, then, is logic. It 
applies not only to the element of story, but also to the 
element of people, in their characterization. In fact, 
logic is, in a sense, the binding principle which cements 
the plot and the people in a play. Another name for this 
principle is "probability;" still another, "consistency;" 
neither of these terms, however, is so satisfying, because 
not so inclusive, as "logic." 

The Endowments of the Playwright 

The aspiring playwright should first introspectively 
consult his creative equipment for the purpose of dis- 
covering whether it includes aptitudes in line with the 
three essentials of the drama so far mentioned. Is he 
gifted with the ability to imagine stories? Is he not only 
something of a born plot-maker, but also a sound, if 
intuitive, psychologist? Has he that power of observa- 



4 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

tion which enables him unerringly to single out and to 
classify the traits, regular and eccentric, of human nature? 
And, finally, is he endowed with a relentlessly logical 
thinking apparatus, which will never allow itself to be 
thrown out of gear or off the track, no matter how much 
pressure may be brought to bear upon it by the power of 
mental habit or the tyranny of precedent? 

The probably successful playwright must have this 
triple gift. He needs to be, in fact, a combination of the 
scientific and the artistic type of mind. The science of 
humanity is the foundation of the art of the drama, and 
it is in both fields that the dramatist must be an expert. 

Manifestly, not all men and women can be made into 
playwrights. Life is infinitely too short. Writers for the 
stage must be born saturated with drama, oozing drama 
from their finger-tips, living their lives largely in an imag- 
inative realm of the mimetic, thinking in terms of drama, 
seeing all life, indeed, from the special angle of its 
effective theatrical representation. 

Sarcey 1 quotes Sardou as insisting on the fact that "the 
true character, the distinctive sign, of the man born for 
the theatre, is to see nothing, to hear nothing, which does 
not immediately take on, for him, the theatrical aspect: 
" 'This landscape he admires, what a beautiful setting! 
This charming conversation he listens to, what pretty 
dialogue! This delicious young girl that passes, how 
adorable an ingenue! Finally, this misfortune, this 
crime, this disaster one describes to him, what a situation! 
what a scene! what drama! The special faculty of drama- 

1 Quarante Ans de Theatre. 



THE PLAY AND ITS WRITER 5 

tizing everything constitutes the power of the dramatic 
author.' . . . Unfortunately, it must be at once admitted 
that this thing is not easy or common. We are forever 
passing by dramatic incidents and situations which do 
not strike us at all, because they are affairs of ordinary 
life; but which others, gifted with a special vision, per- 
ceive, and from which they extract the drama we never 
even suspected 

" To see a true thing and to feel that it would be effective 
on the stage, that is the first part of this special gift 
Sardou talks about; to imagine the dramatic form which 
would reveal this true thing, that is, to find a means of 
giving it verisimilitude in the eyes of twelve hundred 
people assembled before the footlights, is the second and 
last part which makes up the whole. And there is nothing 
rarer in the world than this gift." 

In insisting on this element of congenital endowment 
as being necessarily fundamental to all training in play- 
making, we might go further and say that the successful 
dramatist, even our latter-day species, must be a poet. 
So, indeed, he was usually named a century or two ago, 
not because he wrote in verse, but because he dealt in an 
art-form closely related to poetry pure and simple. The 
drama aims primarily at the emotions. A story acted out 
by characters, however logical it may be, if it fails to 
arouse the feelings of the audience, is not a play. Drama 
to-day is oftenest written in prose; but, if it is to succeed, it 
does not confine itself to a purely intellectual appeal. 
Rather are we accustomed to believe that drama rises 
above mere spoken dialogue and pantomime to its own 



6 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

peculiar plane solely when it produces a distinct emotion- 
al reaction. 

This, then, is drama, reduced to its elements: A unified 
and logical story told in action by its own characters and 
making a sustained emotional appeal. Its proper con- 
struction requires a certain innate poetic ability specialized 
in the direction of what is effective for the stage — the 
expression of life in terms of concrete action, the visualiza- 
tion of truth. Without the power to embody the abstract, 
without a mentality combining the clearest thinking with 
the deepest feeling, the aspirant to honors in writing 
plays will probably fall short even of mediocrity. 

Underlying and infusing all worthy dramatic writing is 
the individualized and emphatic personality of the 
dramatist. Personality is, after all, the prime requisite. 
Are you a man or a woman gifted with a mental, moral, 
and spiritual constitution that sufficiently differentiates 
you from the mass of humanity to make your viewpoint, 
your utterances, your creative endeavors of whatsoever 
sort, inherently attractive merely because they have in 
them the flavor of yourself? If so, you may safely begin to 
take stock of your other native endowments with a view 
to determining your fitness to write plays. The ability 
to effect mere rearrangements of antiquated situations 
and characters is far from sufficient. Ibsen, Brieux, 
Pinero, Shaw, Rostand, Maeterlinck, Barrie — these are 
personalities constantly revealing themselves through the 
mimic world they create. There is no set formula for the 
process. The style is the man, and it can be neither mis- 
taken nor imitated. What the men and women on the 



THE PLAY AND ITS WRITER 7 

stage say and do, or refrain from saying and doing, in 
some mysterious manner reveals the sympathies and 
antipathies, the tastes, the foibles, and the ideals of their 
creator; and him we like, abhor, or are indifferent to, 
according as he is strong and sincere, feeble and disingen- 
uous, or commonplace and dull. 

Endowment Plus Preparation 

If, however, the self-consulting aspirant thinks he finds 
the necessary endowment present — in germ, as is most 
likely, rather than in total development — there will still 
remain by way of preparation the mastering of a consid- 
erable number of time- tried technical processes. The 
drama, like all other arts or crafts, has its body of doctrine 
gained from experimentation. One must know as many 
facts about ways and means before broaching the con- 
struction of a play, at least as one must know, for instance, 
before beginning to build a house. 

To set forth as simply and concretely as possible these 
basic tenets of the art of dramatic composition will be the 
aim of the chapters to follow. 

Questions and Exercises 

i. Formulate your own definition for the drama. 

2. Quote as many definitions as you can from 
authorities. 

3. Make a list of the elements generally agreed on. 

4. What elements in these definitions seem to you to 
be not properly included? 



8 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

5. Are one's native mental and emotional endowments 
generally in plain evidence at the age, say, of from 
twenty-five to thirty? 

6. What sort of experiences and exercises are likely to 
reveal to oneself his own native gifts? 

7. Compare the necessity for native gifts in the play- 
wright and in the painter; in the poet; in the novelist. 

8. Restate in your own words the qualities that the 
present author holds must be inborn in the truly success- 
ful playwright. 

9. Would you add to or subtract from this list? Why? 
10. What relation does intelligent study bear to native 

endowment? 



CHAPTER II 



THE THEME 

Beginning with the " Fils naturel" he [Dumas fils] engaged in 
the development of social theories. To paint characters, ridi- 
cules, and passions was not enough. He wished to leave with 
the spectators "something to think over," to make them hear 
"things good to be said." — Georges Pellissier, Le Mouvement 
Litteraire au XIX e Steele. 

The truth is that plays of ideas must, first of all, be plays of 
emotion. "Primum vivere, deinde philosophari. " The "idea" 
is excellent, as giving a meaning and unity to the play, but if 
it be allowed to obtrude itself so as to impair the sense of reality, 
the flow of emotion is immediately arrested. Emotion, not logic, 
is the stuff of drama. A play that stirs our emotions may be 
absolutely "unidea'd. " That is a case of emotion for emotion's 
sake — the typical case of melodrama. The play really great 
is the play which first stirs our emotions profoundly and then 
gives a meaning and direction to our feelings by the unity and 
truth of some underlying idea. — A. B. Walkley, Drama and Life. 

Directions for writing plays usually commence with the 
choice of a theme, and properly so; for, theoretically, a 
drama is supposed to be the development of an abstract 
truth, which is its germ, which may be summed up in a 
sentence or two, and which is thought out in advance of 
any actual composition. 

The theme of "Macbeth," for instance, may be thus 
stated: 

A man of high position is led to commit a great crime 
to attain his ambition. 



IO THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

To maintain his position he is led to other crimes. 

Finally, gaining no enjoyment from the attainment of 
his ambition, he is put to death by forces aroused by his 
own crimes. 

Or the theme of "Hamlet" may be somewhat more 
elaborately couched as follows: 

Hamlet, a student and a dreamer, has been made aware 
of his father's murder and his mother's seduction by his 
uncle, now king. This he has learned from the ghost of 
his father, who incites him to revenge. Hamlet is hesitant, 
dilatory, incredulous: he loses time while he devises a test 
of the worth of the ghost's word, and again for fear of 
sending his enemy's soul to heaven by killing him while 
he is at prayer. 

His inactivity results in his killing by mistake an inno- 
cent man, and thus maddening that man's daughter, 
Hamlet's sweetheart. His purpose almost blunted, he 
departs, returns, and, finally in killing his enemy, is him- 
self involved in a general destruction which his own 
hesitancy has brought about. 

Or, much more briefly, the matter might be phrased as 
a thesis thus: 

Placed in a position demanding heroic action, a dreamer, 
though of superb mentality, can only involve himself and 
others in ruin. 

The Thesis as a Theme 

Between these two ways of stating the Hamlet theme we 
find a distinction that is worth noting: the former is 
chiefly a compression of the plot, with a hint of the truth 



THE THEME II 

that underlies it; the latter is the precise formulation of 
the argument, or thesis, which the story works out by way 
of illustration. Most of the great serious plays may be 
shown to support such theses, though not necessarily to 
have started out with that chief purpose — of which more 
later. 

A further distinction must be pointed out between both 
of the foregoing theme-types and the kind that sets forth 
certain facts of life in a sort of unprejudiced, reportorial 
way, without formulating a thesis — as in certain obvious 
instances presently to be cited. 

Theoretically we should conceive of Shakespeare as 
having first selected a thesis and afterward casting about 
him for a fable, or story, and a set of characters, that 
would give the idea suitable and adequate dramatic illus- 
tration. Similarly, Mr. George Bernard Shaw would 
begin "Man and Superman" by reflecting on the para- 
doxical notion that woman is really the pursuer in love; 
Mr. Augustus Thomas would start to work on "The 
Witching Hour" after due consideration of the dynamic 
power of thought; Henrik Ibsen would preface the writing 
of "Ghosts" by recalling the fact that the sins of the 
fathers are visited on the children; and Messrs. Arnold 
Bennett and Edward Knoblauch would deliberately select 
as the underlying idea for "Milestones" the conflict of 
the radicalism of youth with the conservatism of age. 

But I do not know whether these latter-day writers 
actually thus set to work. Shakespeare, as scores of 
critics have pointed out, began "Macbeth" and "Hamlet" 
by in each instance taking an old story ready-made and 



12 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

then altering and rearranging its incidents and characters. 
Possibly this process was carried out, too, with little 
definite conception, or at least with no definite phrasing, 
of a central thought as theme. Most serious playwrights, 
upon analysis, do turn out to have themes; but it may be 
that they generally have them as children have parents — 
without much previous selection. So we must not insist 
too firmly on this theory. 

"I will not say that it is a fault when the dramatic poet 
arranges his fable in such a manner that it serves for the 
exposition or confirmation of some great moral truth. 
But I may say that this arrangement of the fable is any- 
thing but needful; that there are very instructive and 
perfect plays that do not aim at such a single maxim, and 
that we err when we regard the moral sentence such as is 
found at the close of many ancient tragedies, as the key- 
note for the existence of the entire play." 1 

In writing "The Witching Hour," as has just been sug- 
gested, Mr. Augustus Thomas doubtless began with the 
conviction as thesis that the stronger and more whole- 
some thought vanquishes the weaker and less healthful. 
In "Arizona," however, which is essentially a story-play, 
he did not require so clear and concrete a germ idea. 
And if in "As a Man Thinks" he purposed to illustrate 
the poison of hatred and its antidote forgiveness, it is 
obvious that he added thereto certain ancillary themes, 
such as the modern relations of Jew and Gentile, and the 
double standard of morals for the sexes. This last in a 
sense amounts to a specific denial that this is, after all, 
a man's world — a sort of reversal of Ibsen's theme in 
"A Doll's House." 

1 Lessing, Dramatic Notes. 



THE THEME 13 

But which comes first, abstract notion or concrete 
incident? The question is of minor importance: what 
matters is that the idea be properly embodied in the 
event. Note the case of "A Doll's House." Its basic 
thought the author himself thus worded: 

"A woman cannot be herself in the society of the 
present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, 
with laws framed by men and with a judicial system 
that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point 
of view." As a matter of fact, however, it appears 
that Ibsen's real starting-point was the account of a 
woman's forgery; though the circumstances and the cause 
of her action doubtless led to the formulation, by an 
inductive process, of the drama's thesis. 

Absence of Thesis in Some Forms of Drama 

On the other hand, it is quite apparent that Mr. Paul 
Armstrong had no definite thesis in mind when he dashed 
off "Alias Jimmy Valentine" in the course — it is said — 
of a single week; nor had Mr. Graham Moffat, when he 
wrote "A Scrape o' the Pen." The former work was, of 
course, merely the adaptation and expansion of a story 
by O. Henry; the latter a picture of humble Scotch life 
and character. 

Plays are sometimes roughly divided into three classes: 
story-plays, character-plays, and plays of ideas. It seems 
obvious that a writer may set out to tell a story, or to 
exhibit characters in action, without laying down for his 
work any fundamental thesis. Perhaps, after all, the only 
story-plays and character-plays that actually grow out of 



14 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

a preconceived theme are those that are also in a measure 
plays of ideas. Farce and melodrama — "The Deep 
Purple," "Within the Law," "Kick In," "Twin Beds," 
"Over Night," "Seven Days," "Hernani," "Virginius," 
"The Whip," "The Importance of Being Earnest," 
"Officer 666," "The Dictator" — scarcely need any ante- 
cedent themes other than the purpose to amuse or to 
thrill. 

Other Play-Bases than the Set Theme 

The playwright, then, may start his play with a basic 
idea — the vaulting ambition of Macbeth or the unpracti- 
calness of Hamlet — and often such is his method. 
However, it is equally feasible that he should begin 
merely with an incident noted in real life or described 
in a periodical. Mr. Charles Kenyon is said to have 
found the entire plot of "Kindling" ready-made, in a 
single newspaper clipping. Less fortunate story-play 
writers will perhaps combine various incidents similarly 
gleaned, with figures eclectically assembled. As for the 
writers of character-plays, they will gather their men and 
women where they can and set them forth on the boards, 
often also without having connected them with any 
abstraction to be illustrated. 

How Some Plays Were Bom 

"One blindingly foggy night in London," we are told, 
"Messrs. Haddon Chambers and Paul Arthur were 
trudging from the theatre to the former's lodgings. Sud- 
denly out of the impenetrable mist loomed what Mr. 



THE THEME 1 5 

Chambers calls a * smear,' 'a stain on humanity,' a typical 
London tramp, one who neither sows nor spins. Mr. 
Chambers and the tramp collided, but the latter was 
quick with apologies well worded and gently spoken. The 
man, whose name was Burns, interested Mr, Chambers, 
who finally invited him home, along with his friend Mr. 
Arthur, for a bite of supper. Without realizing it, the 
playwright had received the stimulus which was to result 
in 'Passers-By.' " 

Almost anything, apparently, may suggest a play. Mr. 
Hubert Henry Davies, it is said, wishful of success in the 
drama, suddenly reflected that there are many admirable 
actresses past their prime of beauty, who need only good 
plays to demonstrate that they still have talent. There- 
upon he set about the writing of such a vehicle and pro- 
duced "Mrs. Goringe's Necklace." 

Once upon a time, we learn, a man assaulted Mr. Charles 
Klein, who threatened his arrest. The assailant defied 
him, openly relying upon his influence at the office of the 
public prosecutor. This intimated corruption suggested 
the play, "The District Attorney." Magazine and news- 
paper reports of Congressional proceedings and of monop- 
oly methods are said to have furnished the inspiration for 
"The Lion and the Mouse." The phrase "the one-man 
power" was what first drew the playwright's attention. 
"I wrote the play," he explains, "to show the terrible 
possibility for evil of unlicensed money-power." A remark 
by a well-known psychologist, that a man might be forced 
through suggestion to confess a crime of which he was 
innocent, combined with the idea of police graft to inspire 
"The Third Degree." 



1 6 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

"The ideas of my plays," Sir Arthur Wing Pinero is 
quoted as having explained, "are born — I do not know 
how. They come to me most readily when there is plenty 
of activity and excitement around me. They are sug- 
gested by my observation of simple, everyday things — 
perhaps a mere incident will become the cornerstone of a 
dramatic theme." 

Though he had often travelled in the far Southwest, 
William Vaughn Moody did not there acquire the idea of 
"The Great Divide." Instead, the story came to him in 
a Chicago drawing-room, where a friend was relating the 
episode of a Sabine union that had actually occurred in 
the wilderness. This gave Moody his now celebrated first 
act — originally, by the way, Act II — from which he 
developed his psychological melodrama. 

Certainly this sort of play origin is very different from 
the method of logical formulae. The four most important 
figures in Victor Hugo's "Ruy Bias," for example, "repre- 
sent the principal features observed by the philosopher- 
historian in contemplating the Spanish monarchy of a 
hundred and forty years ago." The idea underlying 
"Le Roi s' amuse" is that paternal love will transform a 
creature utterly degraded by physical inferiority. The 
idea of "Lucrece Borgia" is that maternal love purifies even 
moral deformity. 

Monsieur Pellissier points out that this rational view of 
the subject leads naturally to the abstract. "AH the 
activity of the personages has as its preconceived goal the 
realization of an 'idea/ a 'thought' of the playwright. 
We have what is no longer the development of characters, 



THE THEME 1 7 

but merely the deduction of a thesis." And after Hugo 
comes Alfred de Vigny, ready to substitute the "drame de 
la pensee" for that of life and of action. Directly opposed 
to him, however, was Dumas the elder, with his gifts of 
movement, brilliancy, and color. 

At all events, it would be hard to determine whether 
abstract ideas or concrete individuals and incidents form 
the starting-point of the majority of plays. Doubtless in 
many cases it is impossible for even the dramatist himself 
to explain exactly how his play took rise. Often enough, 
indeed, it has simply been "begot in the ventricle of 
memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered 
upon the mellowing of occasion." 

The Value of Themes 

Meanwhile, however, it appears reasonable that a play 
that is actually developed from a definite theme is most 
likely to possess both the unity and the simplicity, to say 
nothing of the freshness, which good drama requires. 
Purposeless stories in and from real life are apt to be 
digressive; all too readily they absorb incidents and 
characters that distract rather than concentrate the 
attention. Story for story's sake has a natural tendency 
to become involved and intricate beyond the bounds of 
good dramatic art. A character-play without a theme, 
too, may not readily find any satisfactory unifying 
principle; whereas a drama that deliberately sets out to 
demonstrate a clear-cut basic idea will likely be held by its 
very purpose to organic oneness. Moreover, if there be 
any possible plot novelty nowadays, it will probably arise 



l8 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

from the sincere and vigorous treatment of a heartfelt 
conviction. Playwrights with definite themes, it is true, 
often enough go astray into the easy highroads of con- 
ventionality, but they are much better safeguarded against 
this defection than are the mere story-tellers of the stage. 
It is certainly preferable for a play to be about 
something. 

"The 'well-made' play," says Mr. H. T. Parker, "the 
play of artful and vigorous mechanics, from Scribe and 
Sardou to Bernstein and sometimes Jones — is indeed a 
poor thing, with its personages as puppets or cogs, with its 
emotions made according to prescriptions for more or less 
assured effects, with its dialogue as a kind of lubricating 
oil, with no vitalizing spirit except the spirit of the theatre 
as an exciting show place. A play with an underlying and 
informing idea, if only the idea be significant, is a better 
thing, however ineptly the idea may be expressed and 
developed through the speech and the action on the stage. 
The ideal play, as the ideals of the contemporary stage go 
(when it is lucky enough to have any) is the play that is 
born of such an idea, and that by the artistic means of the 
theatre brings it to full and persuasive impartment." 

Theme Difficulties 

There are two main difficulties with regard to dramatic 
themes: first, new ones are exceedingly rare; and, second, 
once chosen, they are often next to impossible of adequate 
illustration. "The New Sin," for example, was planned 
to demonstrate the rather novel notion that the right to 
live is sometimes nullified by the duty to die. However, 



THE THEME I g 

the fable devised is insufficient to make this difficult idea 
acceptable. Again, as has been frequently said, in Clyde 
Fitch's "The City," the powerful central scene — the 
revelation to Hannock of his marriage to his own half- 
sister — is totally disconnected from the theme of the 
drama, which is the influence of urban life upon character. 

In the case of Mr. George M. Cohan's ambitious effort, 
"The Miracle Man," the power of faith for physical and 
moral regeneration is obviously the thesis — much as it was 
in "The Servant in the House," and "The Passing of the 
Third Floor Back." In Mr. Cohan's play, however, 
neither plot nor characterization is sufficient for a convinc- 
ing demonstration of the thesis. Similarly, in "What Is 
Love?" Mr. George Scarborough signally failed to illus- 
trate the difference between the real and the false founda- 
tion for marriage. In this case, the author was unsuccess- 
ful, it is true, largely because his own conception of the 
theme was vague and abortive. One went away from both 
" The Miracle Man " and " What Is Love? " with a distinct 
feeling that the playwright had undertaken something as 
yet beyond his powers. Excellent themes had been chosen, 
but they had not been adequately exemplified. 

Themes, then, though not indispensable to the story-play 
— at least, not in the sense of abstract underlying ideas — 
are reasonably presupposed in the art of the drama, and in 
many plays may be found and concisely expressed with 
little difficulty. Thus, upon analysis, it will be seen that 
the theme of "L'Aiglon" repeats that of "Hamlet," and 
that the fundamental idea of "The Master Builder" 
resembles that of "Macbeth." In "Kindling" we note 



20 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

how children have a right to be well born; in "The Second 
Mrs. Tanqueray," how hopeless is the struggle of such a 
woman as Paula with a "past;" in "The Blue Bird," 
how happiness, which men are prone to seek far afield, 
oftenest lies at home; in "The Pigeon," how worse than 
useless is misplaced charity; in "Joseph Entangled," how 
eagerly people will put the worst interpretation on inno- 
cent occurrences; in "The Phantom Rival," how ill a 
woman's romantic souvenirs are likely to accord with 
reality; in "The Well of the Saints," how much more 
pleasant are illusions than grim facts; in "The Elder 
Brother," how second marriages beget family quarrels; 
in "The Thunderbolt," how prospective legacies intensify 
natural depravity; in "Pygmalion," how the gap between 
the flower-girl and the duchess may be bridged by pho- 
netics — at least, to the satisfaction of Mr. Shaw; in 
"Outcast," how serious a business it is for a man to 
regenerate a woman's soul; in "What Is Love?" how 
real love, as Mr. Scarborough sees it, is that which lends 
to a kiss the sensation ordinarily produced by drinking 
apple toddy; in "The Legend of Leonora," how superior 
to the laws and logic of mere man is charming and in- 
scrutable femininity; in "Magda," how impossible of 
adjustment are social conservatism and radicalism; in 
"Ruy Bias," how essential nobility may shatter itself 
against the barriers of caste; in "A Woman of No Import- 
ance," how unjust is a double standard of morals for the 
sexes; in "Hindle Wakes," how poor a "reparation" 
marriage may be for a wronged girl; in "Polygamy," how 
dire are the consequences of polygamy; in "Waste," how 



THE THEME 21 

an impulsive violation of the moral code may result in 
much waste of power and life; in "Chains," how com- 
pletely responsibility chains us down to humdrum monot- 
ony; in "The Blindness of Virtue," how blind is ignorant 
virtue; in "You Never Can Tell," how you never can 
tell; in "It Pays to Advertise," how it pays to advertise. 
I am aware that hasty summaries of the gists of plays 
lay one liable to much scornful criticism. Dramas often 
have more sides than one, and the appraisal of underlying 
ideas is likely to vary. It remains, however, that plays do 
often have themes, in spite of the fact that we usually 
cannot determine whether the themes preceded or fol- 
lowed the plots in point of time or were cognate with them. 
But, in any event, as critics are constantly reiterating, the 
beginner at play-writing may rest confident that dramatic 
work springing from a definite germ of thought will logi- 
cally stand a better show of success than will that which is 
accreted indiscriminately from mere scraps of story and 
character and dialogue. 

Questions and Exercises 

i. Point out the difference usually found between a 
theme and a title, and illustrate from two modern plays. 

2. State the themes of three modern plays, each couched 
in two forms: first in the "plot" manner illustrated on 
page 10, and second in the thesis manner, on page 13. 

3. Give an instance from your own observation in which 
the thesis-theme is imperfectly sustained or illustrated 
by the action of the play. 



22 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

4. Have you ever seen a weak play on a really big theme? 
Criticise it from your present viewpoint. 

5. Formulate the theme of any one of Shakespeare's 
comedies. 

6. State the thesis of any one of Shakespeare's tragedies. 

7. In your opinion, can the permanency of any of the 
world's great plays be in large measure attributed to the 
greatness of its theme? 

8. What factors lend permanency of interest to a 
theme? Illustrate. 

9. Cite themes from popularly successful plays that in 
your opinion are doomed to only a passing interest on 
account of their themes. Give reasons. 

10. Give the themes — in any form — of six modern plays. 

11. Express in the form of a proverb the theme of one 
modern play. 

12. Invent theses for three possible plays. Try to 
avoid triteness in expression. 

13. Invent three subjects for plays, but do not use the 
thesis form of statement. 

14. Criticise any of the theme statements on page 20 
that you can intelligently. 

15. Tell how any one dramatic theme came to you 
personally. 

16. What habits and practices would seem to you likely 
to bring about a mood productive of theme ideas? 

17. Do themes occur to you readily? 

18. Does it encourage originality or imitation to sit 
down and try to think of a theme? 



THE THEME 23 

19. Relate any one experience in life that has come to 
you that suggests a dramatic theme. 

20. Try to find in the newspapers a theme suitable for 
a play. Clip it and present it in class. 

21. The foregoing suggestion may prove to be no more 
than a theme in embryo. If so, develop the germ until 
it is expressed clearly and fully in a single sentence. 

22. What short-stories or novels recently read by you 
disclose themes for plays? 

23. State the themes of from three to five of these, 
briefly but fully. 

24. Give a modern example of a play on a trite theme 
that has been redeemed by fresh treatment. 



CHAPTER III 



THE ELEMENTS 

One other law is no less essential: it is that which indicates 
that an action in the theatre must be conducted by wills, if not 
always free, always at least self-conscious. . . . This law 
is nothing more than the expression ... of that which in the 
very definition of the theatre is essential, peculiar, and, to re- 
peat, absolutely specific. . . . That which peculiarly belongs 
only to the theatre, that which through all literatures, from the 
Greek to our own, forms the permanent and continued unity of 
the dramatic species, is the spectacle of a will which unfolds 
itself; — and that is why action, and action thus defined, will 
always be the law of the theatre. — Ferdinand Brunetiere, Les 
Epoques du Thedtre Frangais. 

It is sometimes supposed that the drama consists of incident. 
It consists of passion, which gives the actor his opportunity; 
and that passion must progressively increase, or the actor, as 
the piece proceeded, would be unable to carry the audience from 
a lower to a higher pitch of interest and emotion. A good serious 
play must therefore be founded on one of the passionate cruces 
of life, where duty and inclination come nobly to the grapple. 
— Robert Louis Stevenson, A Humble Remonstrance. 

Roughly speaking, all plays are compounded primarily 
of plot, characters, and dialogue. Dialogue, it is true, is 
wholly absent in the case of pantomimes; but then it is in 
a sense supplied by gesture and facial expression, much as 
in opera it is supplied by song, and as in still other forms 
of drama it appears as poetry or rhetoric. These ele- 
ments — fully treated later — must now be viewed broadly 
in a preliminary way. 



THE ELEMENTS 25 

Assuming that the dramatist has chosen his theme, he 
has next to devise a plot, or story-framework, and char- 
acters that will be adequate to its expression. The charac- 
ters will reveal the story by means of dialogue, in addition 
to appearance, physical action, and pantomime. The 
story, being for the stage, will have to be emotionally 
exciting. Moreover, it must not trespass upon the truth 
of the characterization — too far, in the case of melodrama 
or farce; at all, in the case of comedy or tragedy. On the 
other hand, the characterization must not be developed at 
the expense, or at least to the exclusion of, the plot. And 
the dialogue, always including pantomime, must, to fulfill 
its function, both reveal character and advance the story 
from line to line. 

Struggle an Essential Plot Element 

The action of a drama — meaning the doings and the 
sayings of the characters in a unified fable, or plotted 
story — most readily takes on the emotional quality 
through the portrayal of conflict. It has generally been 
asserted that the essence of the drama is a struggle; 1 and, 

1 Mr. Archibald Henderson, in an article in The Drama (August, 
1914; pages 441-442), reiterates the observation I made in The 
Drama To-day that a play appeals as does a fight — prize fight, 
bull fight, cock fight, etc. — struggle naturally being the thing 
best adapted to emotional excitation. Mr. Brander Matthews 
had previously quoted the assertion of Professor Groos that "the 
pleasure afforded by the drama has one very essential feature in 
common with ring contests, animal fights, races, etc., — namely, 
that of observing a struggle in which we may inwardly partici- 
pate." The gist of the matter, of course, as most writers on the 



26 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

while exceptions have been taken to this view, they are 
for the most part feeble and quibbling. There are dramas 
without struggle, we are told, but this is true only in a 
special sense of the word. A conflict is made up of effort 
and resistance, even though that resistance may be as 
passive as that of a mountain resisting the climber. With- 
out both of these elements, there can be little, if any, drama. 
How can there be a play of any important appeal, through 
which a protagonist simply wanders without purpose, 
meeting with no obstacle, human or otherwise? How can 
there be a play of any vital consequence in which the hero 
proceeds straight forward on his resolute course, with no 
let or hindrance, to the final curtain? 

It has been suggested by Mr. William Archer that it is 
not conflict that is essential to drama, but rather crisis. 
As many reviewers have promptly seen, this is scarcely a 
satisfactory substitution. There is crisis in drama, certain- 
ly, but does it not invariably appear as the real or supposed 
turning-point in some sort of antagonism? Of plays said to 
contain no struggle, we are cited to " (Edipus Rex," " Othel- 
lo," " As You Like It," "Ghosts," "Hamlet," "Lear," as 
examples. Conflict in the drama does not necessarily 
mean "a stand-up fight between will and will." It is not 

1 Continued — 

drama have observed, is simply that every good play is at 

bottom some sort of fight. 

As Mr. Chester S. Lord, of the New York Sun, recently pointed 
out to a group of journalism teachers, the same principle holds 
true with regard to the newspaper. "Were you to ask me to 
name the kind of news for which the people surge and struggle," 
he said, "I surely must reply that it is the details of a contest — 
a fight, whether between men or dogs or armies." 



THE ELEMENTS 27 

even essential that the fight should be a resolute knock- 
down affair: all men are not constituted to wage that kind 
of battle. (Edipus contends as best he may against the 
tremendous antagonism of the Fates. Hamlet hacks 
fitfully at the opposing circumstances that hem him in. 
Even the monotony-haunted clerks in Miss Elizabeth 
Baker's " Chains" make some effort to break their shackles. 
And it has been pointed out, also, that Richard Wilson's 
attempt to cut loose from the routine that is gradually 
subjugating his soul is typical of the underlying conflict of 
certain great forces that mark our modern civilization — 
the yearning for land ownership and the rebellion against 
being a mere cog in the machine. In "As You Like It" 
the element that most interests us, not to mention various 
conflicts with wicked relatives, is that war of the sexes 
and of wits that is the staple of high comedy today as 
ever. And as for "Ghosts," what more fearful, if impo- 
tent, struggle was ever waged than that of Mrs. Alving, 
backed up by conventional morality as personified in 
Pastor Manders? Her great antagonist is Natural Law, 
the modern prototype of the Fates, here masked as horrid 
and relentless Heredity. Moreover, the play as a whole 
exemplifies the terrific battle of the dead present with the 
living past. What underlies true tragedy, after all, but a 
helpless grapple with the overwhelming forces of destiny? 
Hamlet, Lear, Othello, (Edipus, Agamemnon, Brutus, 
Paula Tanqueray, all are involved in this strife, though it 
be not a hand-to-hand combat with destiny incarnate. 1 

1 Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, in an introduction, dated July, 
1914, for a reprint of Brunetiere on the law of the drama, I find, 



28 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Moreover, there is in all drama, not only central, but 
also ancillary conflict in many phases. "We start from a 
state of calm which contains in it the elements of a dra- 
matic conflict; we see these elements rush together and 
effervesce; and we watch the effervescence die back again 
into calm, whether it be that of triumph or disaster, of 
serenity or despair." 2 

It appears that there are some critical playgoers who are 
as insistent on stand-up-and-knock-down battle as was 
Polonius for his jig or his tale of bawdry. Without a sheer 
physical fight, like him they sleep. It is neither a necessary 
nor a probable course, however, for the playwright in 
every instance to set about the illustration of his theme by 
deliberately choosing two antagonists and, Cadmus-like, 
putting them at odds with each other. But it is well to 
remember that conflict is nearly if not quite the first state 
of drama, and that it is most naturally adapted to the 
excitation of emotion. 

Setting the Struggle in Array 

Mr. Augustus Thomas is quoted in a newspaper article 
as thus describing the process by which a play takes form: 

" There must be, to begin with, a proponent for the idea, 
a character who believes in it, who preaches it, who guides 

1 Continued — 

has similarly refuted the "crisis theory." What here appears 
on the subject was written within a few weeks after the publica- 
tion of Mr. Archer's "Play Making" in 1912. Of course, the 
weakness of the theory is perfectly obvious, and it can be shown 
in no other way than to point out the struggle in the examples 
cited. 

2 William Archer, in The Forum; March, 1910. 



THE ELEMENTS 29 

his life by it. Next, there must be an opponent. He is to 
oppose the idea, to bring about the conflict upon which 
drama lives. There must then be a third person, a person 
in dispute, as it were. Not so much a person for whom the 
first two are struggling — such as the heroine of melodrama, 
for instance — more a character whose life and fortunes are 
to be shaped, heightened, or despoiled according as the 
idea of the play conquers or falls. Lastly, there must be a 
detached character, whom we might call the Attorney for 
the People. He is an outsider, a doubter. He represents 
the audience. He sees the struggles of the proponent and 
the opponent. Like us in the audience, he must be 
affected one way or the other, for or against. Often this 
attorney is the familiar 'family friend,' a fine comedy part, 
because so human, so real — just like the audience that he 
represents." 

This is, indeed, a specific formula. One will probably 
not agree to follow it so closely as has Mr. Thomas in 
certain of his later plays. One may object, for example, 
to the raisonneur out of Dumas fils — the Judge Prentice, 
the Lew Ellinger, or the Doctor Seelig. Nevertheless, 
roughly speaking, the procedure indicated is in part 
at least the one usually adopted. Reflection upon the 
theme — or whatever else may serve as a starting-point — 
will presently suggest the kind of men and women by 
means of whom in action the theme may be visualized. 
Gradually they will take shape and be delimited. As they 
are mentally revolved and molded, the conduct possible 
to them in the realm of the logical will appear. Then will 
come the effect of this conduct upon their fellows, indi- 



30 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

vidually and in the mass. Action and reaction will result 
in inevitable crisis and climax. From all this must be 
chosen what seems best adapted to the original purpose 
and what does no violence to truth by producing incon- 
sistency. After selection, proportion. To each incident 
and each individual the appropriate allotment of time and 
space. This means, of course, relative importance, which 
is, in turn, a matter of emphasis. Thus the drama slowly 
looms forth, chaotic at first, then vaguely outlined, and 
at length clear-cut and solid, if still unpolished. 

Marshalling the Characters for the Struggle 

An illustration may be of service. Suppose that the 
theme chosen is that vital thesis that Wordsworth em- 
bodied when he wrote, 

"The world is too much with us; late and soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers." 

What figures and what fable might we devise to give this 
truth dramatic expression? The opportunities are large. 
We will start with a worldling, perhaps recalling an 
individual of our own acquaintance, at least compound 
one from our own observations. We shall want to portray 
him in his attachment to the mundane and to show the 
consequences of his infatuation. Is our protagonist to be 
man or woman? Say, a man. Is he young or old? Per- 
haps old, because it takes time for chickens to come home 
to roost. How will he suffer? We look about us for 
examples, and observe that it is often in their children that 
men find their retribution. Here, then, is the father of, 



THE ELEMENTS 3 1 

say, two children, a son and a daughter. Through them 
he will chiefly pay the penalty of having early sold himself 
to the devil of commercialism. Three figures already. 
What will the son be like? What the daughter? Is their 
mother yet living? If so, how has she fared? Let us 
think her out of nothingness into being. Perhaps for our 
purposes we decide to let her die, or rather to let her never 
have existed. What then? We shall need other charac- 
ters. Our protagonist' suggests, by the highly effective 
dramatic principle of contrast, his counterpart: another 
man, not a worldling. Has he a family? Shall we carry the 
balanced structure so far? There is some danger in it. 
But somehow we think out this man and his connections. 

So the process goes. The children of the protagonist 
suggest their husbands or wives, their lovers or sweet- 
hearts. A lover perhaps suggests a rival. Very soon we 
find we must stop to consider whether the as yet ghostly 
figures that have been evoked are all likely to prove 
adapted, or which of them may prove best adapted, to 
the original aim. 

Meanwhile, the plot element is not standing still. In- 
deed, we can make little headway with our selection of 
characters without taking the plot into account and 
watching it evolve. Our protagonist, for example, to 
show himself for what he is — what he has become as a 
result of his worldliness — must do something. He must 
exhibit an attitude, say toward his children, oppose their 
wishes, force upon them his own plans, and so involve 
himself and them in the natural consequences. Each will 
react from a given stimulus in harmony with the prin- 



32 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

ciples of his character. Of course, human nature is 
unfathomably complex. That is why Zola's scientific, 
laboratory method for its study is impracticable. But, 
after all, on the stage as in all fiction, simplicity must be 
cultivated in the treatment of character. We should avoid 
the old exploded "ruling passion" or "humour" plan — 
except perhaps in farce and melodrama — and aim to show 
figures that are more than mere personifications of single 
principles. Our people should be sufficiently rounded to 
appear human. Yet, if they be developed with anything 
like the completeness of a George Eliot treatment, no time 
will be left for the fable. Therefore the need of economy. 
Character must be shown in swift and telling strokes. 
Plot must be unfolded in striking and vital incident. And 
the two processes must be interwoven. The playwright 
cannot be always alternating between characterizing 
speeches and plot-advancing speeches. He must seek, as 
far as possible, to use double-purpose lines. 

Dialogue 

So, then, the characters having been developed in a 
completed story, there is still to be considered the dialogue, 
including pantomime. And this, again, of course, is really 
no separate element but part and parcel of the character 
revelation and the story- telling. In fact, they two have 
produced the dialogue as they have evolved. 

Dialogue is subject to the same principles that apply to 
all correlated language : unity, selection, proportion, coher- 
ence, emphasis, and elegance are all to be considered. 



THE ELEMENTS 33 

Moreover, the dramatic line has its own special require- 
ments. Chief of these is absolute economy. Then comes 
connotation, for dramatic speech constantly suggests 
more than it says in words. 

Furthermore, the relation of speech to action must be 
specially considered. In fact, when a play has been finally 
passed upon as correct in plot and characterization, there 
yet remains no mean task in the mere cutting and fitting 
and polishing of the dialogue to harmonize with the busi- 
ness of pantomime and with the tone of the play. 

Starting with an Incident 

Manifestly, all these processes we have been considering 
are quite the same, whether one starts out to develop a 
definite theme or finds the first suggestion in a newspaper 
paragraph, and makes the aim merely that of telling an 
interesting story on the stage. Suppose the playwright 
comes across the account of a man who, after having been 
for many years considered dead, turns up to declare his 
kinship with a family that has grown rich and powerful. 
In real life, the claimant is regarded as an impostor. He 
has experienced a variegated career, including a blow on 
the head which temporarily destroyed his memory, and a 
term in the penitentiary. In the printed accounts of the 
trial of his suit for recognition there is some suggestion as 
to the characteristics of the various persons he claims as 
his relatives. There are glimpses of his alleged boyhood 
acquaintances who testify for or against him. The 
reporters describe especially his own appearance and 
manner. 



34 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

One sees that here is a considerable mass of available 
material. In a general way the leading figures are already- 
sketched out, together with the leading incidents. There 
is, probably, only the germ of a plot, but it is exceedingly 
fertile. Of course, the story is not entirely new. But 
there are no new plots. The best we can hope for, in the 
way of novelty, is the fresh treatment and combination 
of old situations. 

In the present instance, from the characters suggested 
in the newspaper cuttings, those that seem vital to the 
story will be chosen. Others will be added, from any 
source. Perhaps some will be combined. It all depends 
on the plot, which will be similarly built up. We shall 
have first to decide whether our hero is really an impostor 
or not, and then whether we wish to reveal his true 
identity in the start, or later on. Imagination will recon- 
struct the boyhood of the man who has so long been miss- 
ing, and we shall choose such points as may bear upon our 
fable. The incidents of the memory-destroying blow and 
the penitentiary sentence will require consideration, first 
as to whether they shall be employed or discarded, and then 
as to how they shall be used. Has our hero actually been 
in the penitentiary? And, if so, did he commit a crime, or 
was he unjustly punished? We will reflect that it is often 
hard to gain real sympathy for a criminal. This is a story 
play, and first of all the story must be a success. How- 
ever, it must not be allowed to do violence to the charac- 
ters. 

And so we proceed along exactly the same lines as in the 
case of the play which had its inception in a poet's wording 



THE ELEMENTS 35 

of a profound truth. Plot, characterization, dialogue, and 
pantomime: these are our principal ingredients. They 
must not be merely mixed, but compounded with the 
most delicate chemical accuracy. Not an atom too much 
or too little. Perfect balance and proportion. Complete 
fusion and blending. 

In chapters to follow we shall give each of these prime 
elements a separate consideration. 

Questions and Exercises 

i. Do you know any one important play that does not 
feature a struggle? 

2. Briefly state the nature of the conflict in five modern 
plays. 

3. Do the same for five of Shakespeare's dramas. 

4. Invent five themes involving struggles; state each in 
one short sentence. 

5. Discuss two diverse modern plays, contrasting a 
spiritual struggle with that of a business or social nature. 

6. Take one of the original themes asked for in question 
four and roughly select the characters in the manner 
indicated on page 30. 

7. Define proponent, protagonist. 

8. Restate, in your own language, with any changes you 
prefer, Mr. Thomas's formula, pages 28 and 29. 

9. Make a list of at least twenty-five obstacles con- 
tributory to struggle, whether found in short-stories, 
novels, or plays. State the source specifically in each 
instance. 

10. Make an original list of five such obstacles. 



36 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

ii. Find five such obstacles in newspaper accounts, and, 
if necessary, modify them for dramatic plot purposes. 

12. Are some struggles essentially tragic, others essen- 
tially social comedy, and others essentially comic? Illus- 
trate. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE PLOT AND SOME OF ITS FUNDAMENTALS 

Novices in the art attain to finish of diction and precision of 
portraiture before they can construct the plot. — Aristotle, 
Poetics. 

The common notion seems to be in favor of mere complexity; 
but a plot, properly understood, is perfect only inasmuch as we 
shall find ourselves unable to detach from it or disarrange any 
single incident involved, without destruction to the mass. This 
we say is the point of perfection, — a point never yet attained, 
but not on that account unattainable. Practically, we may con- 
sider a plot as of high excellence when no one of its component 
parts shall be susceptible of removal without detriment to the 
whole. Here, indeed, is a vast lowering of the demand, and with 
less than this no writer of refined taste should content himself. 
— Edgar Allan Poe, Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Willis, and the Drama. 

The plot is the skeleton of the play. " The word means," 
explains Professor Bliss Perry, 1 "as its etymology implies, 
a weaving together. Or, still more simply, we understand 
by plot that which happens to the characters, — the various 
ways in which the forces represented by the different 
personages of the story are made to harmonize or clash 
through external action." 2 

The plot of a play attracts the attention largely through 

1 A Study of Prose Fiction, Chapter VI. 

2 To this it may be added that an effective plot is one that 
arranges its character-forces so as to rise with progressive interest 
to the main crisis, bring out that "big scene" strongly, and then 
adequately end all. — Editor. 



38 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

the element of suspense, or the curiosity to know what is 
going to happen next. Primarily, however, plots are 
interesting because they deal with people, the most allur- 
ing subject humanity can contemplate. We could not 
possibly be so fascinated by the most artfully constructed 
chain of adventures participated in by mere inanimate 
objects, unless, indeed, they had been thoroughly per- 
sonified. 

The Relation of Character to Plot 



It is obvious that in the consideration of human nature, 
upon the stage as elsewhere, the vital thing is what the 
people are; and this we can satisfactorily learn only 
through what they do. Strictly speaking, character is 
the fundamental in drama; but, since character reveals 
itself so exclusively through conduct, the action has come 
to stand first, in all discussions from Aristotle on. 

The Plot Exhibits the Characters in Action 

"Without action there cannot be a tragedy," declared 
the Stagyrite; "there may be without character." By 
"action," to repeat, Aristotle intended a story directed by 
the human will and having a beginning, a middle, and an 
end — what we now call a plotted story. But, on the stage, 
every such action (plot) must be worked out by means of 
the outward movements of the characters, accompanying 
their words. Thus the action of the play is illustrated by 
the actions of the players — that is, the characters. 

We have seen how reflection upon a theme or an incident 
will suggest illustrative characters, who will in turn indi- 



THE PLOT AND SOME OF ITS FUNDAMENTALS 39 

cate illustrative action. It is by this united means that 
the drama progresses. Speech is but an auxiliary — not at 
all essential, entirely secondary. The playwright will do 
well to make sure early in his labors that he is telling his 
story concretely to the eye. This is what especially counts 
in our day. A little surreptitious, dishonest movement on 
the part of a protesting "saint" will convey volumes of 
information on the subject of his hypocrisy. All that he 
can possibly say, or that others can say about him, may 
not accomplish half so much. The keen-eyed dramatist 
looks about him in life for these character-revealing 
motions which are of the essence of drama. 

What is Novelty in Plot? 

Perhaps the foremost difficulty in the weaving of a plot 
concerns the question of novelty. As has often been 
pointed out, absolutely new incidents are practically impos- 
sible. The thirty-six fundamental situations counted by 
Gozzi and Schiller — or perhaps only the twenty-four pro- 
nounced by Gerard de Nerval to be fit for the theatre — 
have probably been utilized in every conceivable grouping. 1 
Goethe — as he told Eckermann — a hundred years ago gave 
up the search for a new story. We must distinguish, how- 
ever, between the fresh and the trite use of old materials in 
plot building. As a matter of fact, the greatest dramatists 
— Sophocles, Shakespeare, Calderon, Moliere — have been 

1 The student interested in this subject, which has been men- 
tioned by practically all writers dealing with the structure of the 
drama, should consult The Thirty-six Dramatic Situations, by 
Georges Polti. 



40 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

content to deal with familiar narratives, but they have all 
by their handling, more particularly through the infusion 
of their personalities, made the old material distinctly 
their own: the Athenian dramatists, like the Elizabethan, 
took twice-told tales and revitalized them with new mean- 
ing. Indeed, there are certain dramatic combinations that 
are legendary, and that one or another playwright is for- 
ever reverting to as the basis of a new play. So the Don 
Juan story is fish to the nets of dramatists so diverse as 
Moliere and George Bernard Shaw. So the Faust legend 
affords ample opportunity to Marlowe and to Goethe. So 
Paolo and Francesca serve Boker and Maeterlinck and 
Stephen Phillips. So various authors can find various 
treatments for Antony and Cleopatra. So the love of a 
sophisticated woman and an unsophisticated man can 
furnish forth pieces like " Thais," " Captain Jinks," 
" Michael and his Lost Angel," "The Garden of Allah," 
and "Romance." So the winning back of a husband's or 
a wife's lost love is at the bottom of all manner of plays, 
such as "The Thief," "The Real Thing," "A Woman's 
Way," "The Marionettes," "Divorcons," "The Gover- 
nor's Lady," "The Lady from Oklahoma," and "The 
Master of the House." Where one writer aims at senti- 
ment, another attempts tragedy; and melodrama and 
farce spring with equal facility from almost the same 
material. 1 

Actual dramatic novelty, then, is perhaps possible only 
in characterization. Old expedients must be combined for 

1 For differentiations among kinds of plays see the chapter so 
entitled, and the Glossary which prefaces this volume. 



THE PLOT AND SOME OF ITS FUNDAMENTALS 4 1 

use with fresh figures. But, when both figures and expe- 
dients are trite, the probability of failure is strong. Thus, 
for example, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, in his medley, 
"We Can't Be as Bad as All That," employed characters 
and situations which not only many other writers but 
also he himself had already utilized in other plays. There 
was the woman with a past, endeavoring to forestall dis- 
covery, as in "Mrs. Dane's Defense," together with the 
one honest man contending against general insincerity, 
as in "The Liars." The very combination itself had 
formerly been made by the same writer in his "White- 
washing Julia." 

On the other hand, the "Heimat" of Sudermann, 
which appeared in America under the title of " Magda," set 
a fashion for plays wherein advanced young women who 
have been betrayed deliberately refuse the so-called 
reparation of marriage. And many of these plays, includ- 
ing such recent ones as Mr. Stanley Houghton's "Hindle 
Wakes," Mr. John Galsworthy's "The Eldest Son," and 
Mr. St. John G. Ervine's "The Magnanimous Lover," 
are quite free from the accusation of conventionality. 
Each is original in its characterization, as well as in the 
treatment of the incidents and the revealed personality 
of the author. 

The Need for Consistency in the Plot 

But if the plot of any play can scarcely pretend to abso- 
lute freshness, it can at least achieve consistency. This 
latter is also a quality bound up with, and dependent on, 
the characterization. Because it is easiest to devise a com- 



42 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

plicated fable in frequently disregarding the logical actions 
of the people portrayed in it, dramatists of lesser rank 
often sacrifice consistency. The best dramaturgy, how- 
ever, let us repeat, fuses plot and people in a skilful 
blending that sacrifices neither element to the other. 

The playgoer's sense of logic is more and more easily 
offended these days with stage personages who act out of 
accord with probability. That is one reason why co- 
incidence — more concerning which subject will be said 
later — is considered an amateurish expedient in plot 
building. For example, we are likely to resent being asked 
to believe that the fortuitous Colonel Smith, who turns 
up, in Mr. A. E. W. Mason's "Green Stockings," on the 
very day the spinster heroine has had his death notice 
published, should be able to guess, on the strength of the 
meagre data in his possession, all the details of the fabrica- 
tion she has foisted on her relatives. Our resentment in 
such cases, of course, varies in proportion to the serious- 
ness of the attempt to portray life, for much is accepted in 
farce that would prove unconvincing in serious drama. 

The Use of Art in Gaining Continuity of Plot 

Next after consistenc}^, the plot of a play stands most in 
need of continuity. Its parts must be clearly related in 
an unbroken and cumulative narrative. We all know that 
the naturalistic school long since endeavored to suppress 
plot, to do away, in fact, with art itself, and to substitute 
mere fragments of reality. Arno Holz and his followers 
labored valiantly in this collecting of graphophonic con- 
versations. With such men as Gerhart Hauptmann, how- 



THE PLOT AND SOME OF ITS FUNDAMENTALS 43 

ever, a coherence was sought which should at the same 
time be as nearly plotless as possible and without suspicion 
of heightening or of culminating effect. 

Monsieur Augustin Filon has almost satirized this 
extreme of tendency in his volume, De Dumas a Rostand: 

"Place . . . these personages in an initial situation 
which will give free play to their dominant vices, their 
master passions. Then let them go it alone; meddle not 
in their affairs; you will spoil everything. No complica- 
tions, no climax, nothing but the development of the 
characters. Above all, no intervention of Providence. . . 
With M. Becque, the gods never arrive, and men disen- 
tangle themselves as best they can. How does one know 
when the play ends? By the fact that the curtain falls. 
And when does the curtain fall? When the author has 
extracted from his characters all that is contained in 
them in a given situation." 

It is true that there is very little plot in real life. Never- 
theless, the drama, to satisfy, must, like any other art, be 
finished and not fragmentary. The Torso Belvedere is all 
very well in its way, but even though we can appreciate 
a "Walking Man" by Rodin, no one would think of 
amputating the limbs and head of the Apollo as a means 
of improvement. And equally of course, if there were no 
value in selection, composition, and the personal equation, 
mere color photography would entirely substitute for 
landscape painting. The soundest critics have had fre- 
quent need to reiterate that a play, like a picture, must 
begin, not simply start, and end, not merely break off. 
It may be that "the constant and bitter conflict in the 



44 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

world does not arise from pointed and opposed notions of 
honor and duty held at some rare climacteric moment, 
but from the far more tragic grinding of a hostile environ- 
ment upon man or of the imprisonment of alien souls in 
the cage of some social bondage." But even such forms of 
conflict may be more effectively portrayed by artistic 
selection and arrangement of typical scenes than with the 
undiscriminating camera. Indeed, the first of the realists 
himself declared that "the dramatic author who shall 
know man as did Balzac and the theatre as did Scribe will 
be the greatest that ever lived." We are undoubtedly 
made so that we understand 

"First when we see them painted, things we 
have passed 
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; 
And so they are better, painted — better to us, 
Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; 
God uses us to help each other so, 
Lending our minds out." 

And prominent among the tried and proved expedients of 
the dramatic art are beginning, complication, climax, end, 
— plot, in short. 

Says Monsieur Filon, again in De Dumas a Rostand, 
referring to Augier and Dumas, "They saw clearly one 
thing that escapes our young authors to-day: that is that 
the intrigue is necessary, not only for the amusement of 
the spectator, but also for the psychological development 
itself. Characters are not studied like insects under the 
microscope. They do not even know themselves, and it 



THE PLOT AND SOME OF ITS FUNDAMENTALS 45 

might be said that they do not exist, except potentially, 
until the moment when they come into contact and con- 
flict with events or with other characters." 

The plot of a drama, then, is the indispensable story 
formed of interwoven strands of action, wherein the 
characters unconsciously reveal themselves. If there are 
— under the sun — no new stories, there are at least endless 
possibilities for the novel treatment of freshly drawn 
figures studied from life and placed in unhackneyed 
relationships and environments. And — the problem of 
emotional interest aside — this sequence of motive and 
incident in which the personages involve themselves 
should have a definite beginning, a logical continuity, 
and a convincing and satisfying end. 

Questions and Exercises 

1. From any available works on the technique of the 
drama or of fiction select the definition of plot that to 
you seems best. 1 

2. Try to formulate a definition of your own. Remem- 
ber that a definition must include neither too little nor 
too much. 

3. Distinguish between the action of a play and the 
actions of the characters. 

4. Why is the play as a type more given to external 
action than is the novel? 

1 Full chapters on plot are given in Writing the Short-Story, 
by J. Berg Esenwein, Writing the Photoplay, by Esenwein and 
Leeds, and The Art of Story-Writing, by Esenwein and Chambers, 
issued uniform with the present volume of "The Writer's 
Library." 



46 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

5. Does the relation of conduct to character hold on 
the stage as it does in real life? 

6. In which realm would the relation be more marked? 

7. Give one example of a modern play in which fresh 
handling has saved a trite plot. 

8. Give examples of your own discovery of at least two 
playwrights' use of the same fundamental plot idea. 

9. Discuss briefly the fitness of the following compari- 
son: The plot brings the leading character in the play to a 
cross-roads in his career and shows dramatically the force 
or forces that determine his course, and then swiftly 
suggests the end of the road. 

10. From some present-day play show how the follow- 
ing statement applies: The plot in drama shows by means 
of action a soul in its hour of crisis, what brought about 
the crisis, what constitutes the problem, and how it is 
solved. 

11. Criticise some modern play from the standpoint of 
its handling of struggle as a plot element. 

12. Does crisis — a "mix-up" brought to a breathless 
query of "What will be the outcome?" — apply to lighter 
forms of drama as well as to the more serious? Illustrate 
from actual plays. 

13. What do you understand by "consistency" of plot? 
Illustrate. 

14. What do you mean by "continuity?" Illustrate. 

15. What is Realism? Naturalism? 

16. Take a simple though vivid happening as found in 
the newspapers and show how by artistic arrangement — 
selection, elimination, addition, shaping, shifting of the 



THE PLOT AND SOME OF ITS FUNDAMENTALS 47 

order of events — you could make a dramatic plot. Do not 
forget to make the struggle central, and indicate not only 
the outcome but the means by which it is brought about. 



CHAPTER V 



SOME FURTHER PLOT FUNDAMENTALS 

It [the "action," or plot] embraces not only the deeds, the 
incidents, the situations, but also the mental processes, and the 
motives which underlie the outward events or which result from 
them. It is the compendious expression for all these forces 
working together toward a definite end. — S. H. Butcher, Aristotle's 
Theory of Poetry and Fine Art. 

In the plot of any story, whether it be a mere thread of inci- 
dent, as in the stories of the Bible, or the slow complicated move- 
ment of some modern novels, the one necessity which underlies 
everything is that a throng of things which happened all together 
must be straightened out into single file in order to be put into 
words. . . . Your first act. ... is to get your material into 
a natural and orderly sequence. — J. H. Gardiner, The Forms 
of Prose Literature. 

Before the author ventures upon the start of a play, 
there are several important considerations to be taken into 
account. 

How many acts are there to be? Modern dramaturgy 
prefers three or four; although there are noteworthy 
recent examples of the five — and even of the two-act 
drama. How many scenes to the act? Present-day cus- 
tom, except in the case of spectacular melodrama, usually 
prescribes but one. "On Trial," "My Lady's Dress," and 
"The Phantom Rival" are noteworthy exceptions, illus- 
trating the moving picture influence. It is always well to 
consider material economy. 



SOME FURTHER PLOT FUNDAMENTALS 49 

Elaborate and numerous settings, as well as extensive 
casts, rarely appeal to the prospective producer; and, 
besides, they often serve to dissipate the attention of the 
audience. Spectators doubtless take a passing pleasure in 
seeing the curtain rise on new and interesting settings; 
but if the play itself be what it should, scenic monotony 
will be readily forgiven. Everyone knows that it is a 
common occurrence nowadays for a slender play to be 
quite lost in an elaborate mise en scdne. Recent cases in 
point are "The Garden of Allah," "The Highway of Life," 
and perhaps to a considerable extent "The Battle Cry." 
Mr. Edward Sheldon's "The Garden of Paradise," founded 
on Hans Christian Andersen's lovely story of the little 
mermaid, was fairly swamped by the superb settings 
devised for it by Mr. Joseph Urban. 

But it may be noted that it is not always the excess of 
scenery that is at fault. The negro lad in the familiar 
anecdote, who became ill, explained ruefully that it was a 
case not of too much watermelon, but of "too little 
niggah." In many instances it is not too much scenery — 
unless the time limit be overstepped — that brings failure, 
but rather too little play. The author should remember 
that only a big picture can take a massive frame. 

All the foregoing bears directly and vitally on the ques- 
tion of plot handling, as regards not only the finished 
product but also the preliminary considerations. 

Where to Begin the Play 

In formulating his plot itself, obviously the first ques- 
tion that confronts the playwright is, Where to begin? 



50 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Some leisurely dramatists commence like the eighteenth 
century novelists, if not at or before the birth, at least 
early in the youth of hero or heroine. "The High Road," 
of Mr. Edward Sheldon, follows this course, long intervals 
elapsing between the acts. Mr. Thompson Buchanan's 
melodrama, "Life," gives us our first glimpse of the pro- 
tagonist while he is still an undergraduate — that is, 
manifestly, before he has "commenced" life. 

The opposite plan is to seize the story near the crisis, to 
let the causes be briefly suggested in the exposition, and 
to produce in the whole play, as critics have told us that 
Ibsen so often did, only a sort of elaborated fifth act. 
"The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" is a familiar example, 
though " Rosmersholm " is a more extreme instance. 

On the whole, this second scheme is preferable. It makes 
for concentration and avoids the unessential. And, gen- 
erally speaking, it gives a better opportunity for the more 
comprehensive character-drawing. The point where one 
begins, however, depends largely on the purpose in mind. 
A detective story, whether in print or on the stage, usually 
starts at what is, chronologically, almost the end of the tale, 
namely, the crime, and works back to the start, the motive 
of the criminal. In Mr. Elmer L. Reizenstein's "On 
Trial" — much heralded by the osteocephalous as arevolu- 
tionizer of all established usage — the narrative commences 
with the trial of the murderer and proceeds by stages into 
the past, in the detective-story manner, reverting occa- 
sionally to the courtroom, where, of course, the tale is 
being told as the trial progresses. In "Innocent" the 
hero shoots himself during the prologue, leaving a diary, 



SOME FURTHER PLOT FUNDAMENTALS 5 1 

the events of which are acted out in the regular time 
order. There is, obviously, nothing revolutionary about 
this method, not even in the frequent flitting from scene 
to scene, as in "On Trial," a procedure in itself certainly 
not younger than the Elizabethan drama. 

Relative Prominence of the Characters 

Another important preliminary consideration deals with 
the question of whether the play is to have a "star" part. 
Formerly few dramas lacked a central figure about whom, 
as the story unfolded, the other dramatis persona revolved. 
At present there is a growing tendency to emphasize a 
small group of significant characters, rather than merely 
one of them. However, the playwright of to-day who 
looks to the actor's interest, so far as gaining production 
for his play is concerned, will do well to provide for the 
emphasized opportunities demanded by the "star" 
system. 

Above all, in this connection, be sure to make your 
protagonist sympathetic. He may be a forger like Jim the 
Penman, or a burglar like Arsene Lupin; she may be a 
courtesan like Zaza or Marguerite Gautier; but the 
utmost skill must be exercised to make him or her appeal- 
ing, lest there turn out to be no differentiation between 
"hero" or "heroine" and villain or adventuress. By way 
of illustration, the student of dramatic technique would 
find it enlightening to consider the causes for the stage 
inadequacy of Stevenson and Henley's "Macaire." 



52 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Unity and Symmetry of Plot 

Unity of thought and feeling, as well as simplicity, is 
essential to the drama, as to all good art. Symmetry, too, 
is often a valuable asset, though it may be exaggerated 
into a defect. For example, in "The House Next Door," 
a comedy adapted from the German by Mr. J. Hartley 
Manners, there are, to begin with, two homes. At the 
head of each is a baronet, whose household consists of a 
wife, a son, a daughter, and at least one servant. This 
elaborate balance is maintained in the plot, the son of each 
family being in love with the daughter of the other. In 
Mr. Rudolf Besier's "Lady Patricia," to cite another often 
cited instance, the romantic heroine and her husband each 
carries on a supposed love affair with a susceptible young- 
ster. Eventually the two couples are reassorted as they 
properly should be; and, meanwhile, the uniform suc- 
cession of balanced scenes has made for a considerable 
monotony. 

But excessive symmetry is a far less serious defect than 
a lack of unity, meaning, of course, the only "unity" that 
matters — that of "action," idea, tone. The old-fashioned 
"underplot" frequently caused this latter failing. 
Indeed, it was often difficult to distinguish the minor from 
the major action. In the finished plays of to-day at least, 
the comic relief is not separated from the central plot, as 
it is, for instance, in "Secret Service," or "Held by the 
Enemy." Rather, the amusing characters, like the juvenile 
lovers, are woven into the main story. 

Generally speaking, a play should elaborate only one 
theme or action — and a "problem" play should attempt 



SOME FURTHER PLOT FUNDAMENTALS 53 

only one problem. Otherwise there may be a falling 
between stools. In Mr. Henry Arthur Jones's melodrama, 
"Lydia Gilmore," there is, first, a mother who perjures 
herself for the sake of her child, and, second, her lover, an 
attorney who connives at perjury to save her husband. 
Here are obviously two striking problems; but the play 
balks them both, as such plays almost invariably do. 

As for unity of feeling, it is quite as essential to good 
dramatic composition as to any other kind. This does not 
mean that we must strictly adhere to the pseudo-classic 
differentiation of the genres. On the contrary, we may — 
in fact, nearly always must — mingle the comic with the 
tragic, the humorous and the pathetic, the lofty and the 
humble, since, as romanticists have so long pointed out, 
these elements are not separated in actual life. But there 
are distinct types of the drama, and they are not with 
impunity to be confused. Farce, for example, is pitched in 
a very different key from comedy, and melodrama from 
tragedy. 1 Moreover, satire and seriousness must be 
handled discreetly in conjunction with each other. Only 
the master hand can be trusted to blend them safely, as 
Pinero has done in "The Thunderbolt." 

"The impression must be one," insisted Sarcey, in his 
"^Esthetics of the Theatre:" "every mixture of laughter 
and tears threatens to confuse it. It is better, then, to 
abstain, and there is nothing more legitimate than the 
absolute distinction of the comic and the tragic, of the 
grotesque and the sublime. However," the good "Uncle" 
added somewhat amusingly, "every rule is subject to 

1 See the chapter on "Kinds of Plays." 



54 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

numerous exceptions." This one is, certainly. Never- 
theless — as the same shrewd critic pointed out — when 
" Le Crocodile" of Sardou begins as comedy of manners, 
turns into philosophical satire, changes then to drame 
noir, at length becomes idyllic, and ends in fantasy, one is 
at every moment disconcerted, thrown off the track. 

Violations of Unity of Feeling 

In vaudeville recently there was performed a playlet 
which had as its main content and its sole source of inter- 
est, the grotesque antics of an alcoholic, chiefly in the 
repeated negotiation of a spiral stairway. Into this 
vehicle of low comedy acrobatics, however, was introduced 
an absurd and serious version of that ancient melo- 
dramatic expedient — the girl who sells herself to save her 
father from debt. Eventually the clown inebriate, himself 
enamored of the heroine, learning the reason of her com- 
plaisance, paid the paternal bills and, after an uninten- 
tionally ridiculous moment of "agony," handed the girl 
over to her poor but honest lover. 

It all constituted an extreme instance of that violated 
unity of impression, that totally unsuccessful effort to 
blend the humorous and the pathetic, against which so 
many authorities have repeatedly warned us. While the 
crudity of it was no great matter in vaudeville, obviously 
it would have gone far toward ruining the chances of any 
full-length effort at play writing. 

Certainly the "confusion of the genres" in almost 
any circumstances, must prove a dangerous pastime. 
Desirable and even necessary as it is to provide the relief 



SOME FURTHER PLOT FUNDAMENTALS 55 

of humor in serious plays, to sweep an audience along 
through an act of obvious melodrama, and then to switch 
suddenly into settled high comedy or perhaps even 
tragedy, is to bewilder and render us impatient. The 
failure of "The Big Idea" of Messrs. A. E. Thomas and 
Clayton Hamilton was probably due as much to the fact 
that it skipped continually from melodrama to farcical 
burlesque and back again as to any of the other contribu- 
tory causes. The gist of the matter is that, in such cir- 
cumstances, the spectator loses all confidence in what he is 
observing, because the fundamental illusion upon which — 
as Sarcey and numerous of his faithful followers have 
repeatedly pointed out — the success of the theatre 
depends, is shattered again and again. 

In the case of "My Lady's Dress," the conditions are 
quite different, Mr. Edward Knoblauch's entertainment 
being little more than a string of distinct and separate 
playlets. Although taken together the work comprises 
farce, melodrama, comedy, and tragedy, each of these 
elements keeps pretty strictly to its own galley. Of 
course, the thing as a whole lacks the full appeal of actually 
unified drama. 

The Relations of the Genres 

Almost everybody who writes about the theatre nowa- 
days takes frequent occasion to remind us that farce is to 
comedy as melodrama is to tragedy; that in farce and 
melodrama the plot is emphasized at the expense of the 
characterization; and that in comedy and tragedy the 
characterization takes precedence of the plot. It is 



56 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

evident that, of the four forms, farce and melodrama, 
comedy and tragedy, are respectively the nearest akin. 
Melodramatic farce, 1 or farcical melodrama, like tragi- 
comedy, is not impossible. In fact, the markedly success- 
ful "Officer 666," of Mr. Augustin MacHugh, is a case in 
point, as in a lesser degree is Mr. James Montgomery's 
"Ready Money." "Seven Keys to Baldpate," "The 
Ghost Breaker," "Hawthorne of the U. S. A." and "Under 
Cover" are examples of similar combination. 

Occasionally we meet with a successful farce that 
depends on a distinctly comedy treatment, as in the case 
of Messrs. Wilfred T. Coleby and Edward Knoblauch's 
amusing skit, "The Headmaster," which draws its effec- 
tiveness from the display of an elaborately sketched char- 
acter confronting a preposterous combination of circum- 
stances. On the other hand, Sir Arthur Pinero's "Pre- 
serving Mr. Panmure" failed largely because of the 
incompatibility of its comedy subject-matter with its 
farcical form; and such hybrids as a rule have not proved 
hardy. As for a piece that wavers between farce and 
tragedy, or between high comedy and melodrama, it will 
certainly find existence a struggle. 

Just what moods may be safely mixed, it is the business 
of the playwright to determine — if he can. I recall at least 
one case in which the friendly criticism of an unproduced 
play that mingled comedy with a type of neurotic tragedy 
resulted in both the emasculation of the piece and delay 
until another equally mixed embodiment of the same 

1 Robert Louis Stevenson and William Ernest Henley, for 
example, thus classified their play, "Macaire." 



SOME FURTHER PLOT FUNDAMENTALS 57 

novel subject had been successfully acted. In all such 
matters we are constantly thrown back upon the signifi- 
cant fact that whatever persistent audiences unquestion- 
ingly accept will do, even though it be a scene like the first 
act climax of a popular version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
wherein simultaneously the serious villain is shot and the 
comic villain is spanked! 

The "happy ending" is notoriously responsible for 
countless abrupt changes of dramatic key. Many a play- 
wright, as will be elsewhere emphasized, starts out with 
potential tragedy and winds up in sudden comedy or 
farce, presumably in response to a relentless popular 
demand. All too obviously, this is the sheerest prostitu- 
tion of the art. Of course, there is slight excuse for arbi- 
trarily killing off characters in a play that might with 
reason end pleasantly; but to portray clear-cut characters 
in an action and an environment that make for tragedy, 
and at the last moment belie them for the sake of a trite 
marriage or an incredible reconciliation, is indeed to sell 
one's birthright for a mess of pottage. 

Perhaps the most serious violation of the unity of feeling 
or tone in plays is produced by the injection of melodrama 
into what should be comedy or tragedy. There are several 
latter-day writers who are chronically troubled by this 
tendency. Mr. Eugene Walter 1 allowed it to militate 

1 " In ' Paid in Full ' Mr. Walter starts out with the very modern 
and very general problem of living according to latter-day 
standards upon an inadequate income. Much as Mr. Broadhurst 
does in "Bought and Paid For," and as Sir Arthur Pinero does 
in "Mid-Channel," as Clyde Fitch does in "The City," and as 
scores of lesser lights have done in scores of other plays, however, 



58 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

against his success in "Paid in Full," much as Mr. James 
Forbes did in "The Chorus Lady," or Mr. Henry Arthur 
Jones in "Michael and his Lost Angel." 

A Logical Plan Necessary 

The plot of a drama, then, requires consistency, con- 
tinuity, unity, in addition — or rather as contributing ele- 
ments — to interest. It would seem manifest that these 
qualities cannot be attained unless the play is constructed 
upon a definite, preconceived plan. It has been asserted 
that the stage itself supplies the element of imagination by 
means of its interpreters, its scenery, and its accessories, 
and that in a sense invention really does not exist for the 
modern realistic dramatist, who merely reproduces 
actuality for the theatre. The supreme element remaining 
is logic. Dumas fils, the master logician of the stage, 
advises the playwright never to commence his work until 
he is sure of the scene, the movement, the very language 

Mr. Walter here quickly throws his initial problem overboard 
and launches into a conventional, if rugged and brutal narrative. 
It is the old story of the plot-ridden characters who, instead of 
doing the inevitable things that would result from all the con- 
ditions according to the logic of life, do the usual things which 
are merely theatrically effective according to the quite different 
unlogic of the footlights. Before we have progressed far into 
Act II we have broken with our fundamental social and economic 
problem — one, besides, that teems with unexplored dramatic 
possibilities — and we are deep in the old, old melodrama of the 
woman tempted to sacrifice her honor to save a man from ruin." 

— The Drama To-day. 
The beginner should study, by way of contrast, the remorseless 
working out of the tragic theme in the same gifted author's, 
"The Easiest Way." 



SOME FURTHER PLOT FUNDAMENTALS 59 

of the final act 1 . In fact, the end of the play should be the 
goal toward which the author proceeds from the beginning. 
At the moment of departure he should have his eyes fixed 
upon his destination. 

"With what fulness, with what firmness of logic," 
Sarcey exclaims, "has Dumas exposed and sustained his 
thesis! The whole play bears its weight on this conclu- 
sion, on this final point, after which one might write, as 
do the geometricians: Q. E. D.: quod erat demonstrandum. 
The thesis-comedies of Dumas are, indeed, living and 
passionate theorems. , ' 

Manifestly, however, only the most spiritless of mortals 
would allow himself to be indissolubly bound by any pre- 
liminaries of his own devising. Few persons build so much 
as a humble dwelling-house in exact accordance with the 
original specifications. We discover from Ibsen's carefully 
preserved notes and sketches that he often learned to know 
his characters only after he had begun to reduce his 
scenario to dialogue, and that, in consequence, he fre- 
quently rewrote his play entire. This is, of course, the 
rational procedure. The dramatist lays out his ground- 
plan and follows it only so far as it is capable of leading 
him. Once he finds himself beginning to transcend it, he 

1 "Dumas is, in dramatic art, the most logical man I know; his 
plays — I speak of the good ones — are built with mathematical 
precision; we can, then, with the aid of the denouement which 
was his ultimate object, reconstruct through a process of reason- 
ing the entire drama and show the part each element must of 
necessity play in the common action." — Francisque Sarcey, 
Quarante Ans de The&tre. 



60 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

alters it to whatever extent is indicated, even to that of 
complete re-invention. It was thus with "The Wild 
Duck," the elaboration of which resulted in an entire 
readjustment of the original outlines. 

It is safe to say, then, that some preliminary sketch — 
usually written down, though perhaps occasionally merely 
mental — is invariably the forerunner of a successful 
drama. Such a document generally contains a plan of 
the plot as divided into acts, together with a notion 
of the characters, and certain hints as to the dialogue. 
Frequently, as the resultant play takes shape, new 
developments arise, and there is an increase of illu- 
mination. Only the formalist, let it be emphasized, 
would under such conditions allow himself to be cir- 
cumscribed by his own preconceived limitations; certainly 
not the ebullient, creative dramatist dealing enthusias- 
tically with the infinite complexity of human life and 
character. 

Before beginning work upon any play, accordingly, the 
dramatist should determine the scheme of division, the 
locale, and the importance and appeal of his leading 
character. Singleness of theme or purpose and, perhaps, 
symmetry of structure should be utilized to insure unity 
of idea, of impression, and of tone. Finally, there should 
be a reasonably definite preconceived plan; but its terms 
should in no case be allowed to dictate a character- 
belying compromise for any purposes of plot, including 
the "happy ending," nor in any way to hamper the full 
and free development of the personages and of the 
impeccable logic of their conduct. 



some further plot fundamentals 6 1 

Questions and Exercises 

i. From your own observation, how many acts and 
scenes are used in five specified plays? 

2. What changes in this respect would, in your opinion, 
have added to popular interest and the effectiveness of the 
production? Consider the questions of cost and practi- 
cability in making your answer. 

3. Have you ever seen a play that degenerated into a 
mere blur of many successive scenes? If so, criticise it 
constructively — that is, so as to suggest improvements. 

4. Show where, in the plot, five modern plays made 
their beginnings. Criticise any two of these favorably or 
adversely from the standpoint of effectiveness, or atten- 
tion-winning value. 

5. What modern plays divide prominence among 
several, or even all the characters? 

6. Personally, do you like this system? Do your 
friends? Find out, and give reasons. 

7. What were the "Three Unities" (see any encyclo- 
pedia) and how do our modern standards differ from them? 

8. What modern Unities are especially important? 

9. Illustrating from modern plays, show how some of 
them are (a) effectively used, or (b) neglected. 

10. Does the saying "Nothing succeeds like success" 
have any bearing on such dramatic "laws" as the modern 
Unities? 

11. Show how Balance, or Symmetry, may be over- 
emphasized. 

12. Does Poe's dictum regarding the short-story, that 



62 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

it should leave a completely unified impression, apply to 
the play? If so, can you give several instances in point? 

13. Does the use of a clear-cut theme have any bearing 
on the unity of a play? 

14. What forces in the audience tempt a playwright to 
disregard unity? 

15. In your opinion, what technical defects in "Macaire" 
seem calculated to make the play ineffective for stage 
purposes? 

16. Show why a carefully elaborated outline ought to 
help the playwright to produce a unified, consistent, 
climacteric, and logical play. 

17. Using one of your own themes, construct such an 
outline for a play. 



CHAPTER VI 



OUTLINING THE COMPLICATION 

Every alteration or crossing of a design, every new-sprung 
passion, and turn of it, is a part of the action, and much the 
noblest, except we conceive nothing to be action till they come 
to blows. — Dryden, Essay of Dramatic Poesy. 

I remember very distinctly his saying to me: "There are, so 
far as I know, three ways, and three ways only, of writing a story. 
You may take a plot and fit characters to it, or you may take a 
character and choose incidents and situations to develop it, or 
lastly — you must bear with me while I try to make this clear" — 
(here he made a gesture with his hand as if he were trying to 
shape something and give it outline and form)— "you may take 
a certain atmosphere and get action and persons to express and 
realize it. I'll give you an example — 'The Merry Men.' There 
I began with the feeling of one of those islands on the west coast 
of Scotland, and I gradually developed the story to express the 
sentiment with which the coast affected me." — Graham Bal- 
four, Life and Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. 

"The crux of the plot is what the word implies — a cross." 
(I take these illuminating passages from Dr. Esenwein.) 
"It may be like a cross-roads, with its consequent choice 
of ways, or it may be the crossing of wills in individuals, or 
the unintentional crossing of one's purposes by some 
innocent person, or the rising of an evil deed out of one's 
past to cross his ambitions, or any one of a countless num- 
ber of such complications. The types are limited, but the 
variations are unlimited and invite the resourceful play- 
wright. 



64 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

"In a full-length play a single complication of major 
importance and strength may result in struggle enough 
to keep the characters embroiled down to the very end. 
In this way minor complications will weave in and out, 
all contributory to or growing out of the main struggle. 
The one thing to be avoided, as has already been sug- 
gested, is that two complications of major calibre should 
war for possession of the auditor's interest. Minor com- 
plications must resolutely be kept in their places." 

Planning the Complication 

By means of such devices as are discussed in the 
immediately succeeding chapters, as well as by use of the 
ordinary chain of events in the story, the beginner will 
build a plot outline. Having laid out the strands of 
interest and motive provided by the characters in their 
initial situation, he proceeds to the interweaving of those 
strands. New incidents, personages, or motives are intro- 
duced. Something happens which changes the trend of 
affairs. Two or more characters coming together clash, 
react, and proceed along diverted courses. A loves B and 
would marry her. But C arrives and conceives a similar 
ambition. A and C contend, and D intervenes, with his 
own peculiar motive, to lend his influence to A. However, 
E and F are interested in the contest in divers ways, and 
they take sides accordingly. So the process goes, all 
designed to interest the audience intensely, as any hard- 
fought contest must — providing, always, that it does not 
lapse into mere wrangling or "sparring for wind." 

The beginner will find it helpful to examine the plot 



OUTLINING THE COMPLICATION 65 

structure of a number of representative plays. For a good 
American example, let us take Mr. Augustus Thomas's 
masterpiece, "The Witching Hour.'' 

"I snare an idea, arrange a half-dozen characters, and 
begin on the plot. The second act comes out in the writing 
of the first, and the third act develops itself out of the 
second." The quotation is from Mr. George M. Cohan. 

Obviously, in "The Witching Hour/' the theme 
"snared" by Mr. Thomas is — to put it most simply — 
telepathy. Assuming that such a phenomenon actually 
exists, we must at once realize its dramatic possibilities. 
We can perhaps fancy the author casting about in memory 
and imagination for characters fitted to work out the 
psychic theme. According to his own prescribed formula, 
quoted in Chapter III from a newspaper interview or 
article, there will be a proponent, an opponent, a person 
in dispute, and a detached character, "the Attorney for 
the People." 

Mr. Thomas chose Kentucky as the scene of three of his 
four acts. Perhaps it was because he knew an actual 
Kentuckian who was fitted to serve as his proponent. 
Perhaps it was because the author saw in the Goebel 
murder case material suited to his purpose. It may be 
that the proverbial quick temper and readiness for gun- 
play associated with Kentuckians had something to do 
with the choice. Doubtless there were numerous other 
determining considerations. At all events, the play- 
wright's mind shaped Jack Brookfield, a gambler, a man 
of physical and mental strength and magnetic personality, 
doubtless unscholarly but by no means uneducated. 



66 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Complication in "The Witching Hour" 

Toward the close of a midnight supper in Brookfield's 
luxurious house, Tom Denning, a worthless gilded youth, 
comes to play cards. He is told to wait until the guests 
have gone. Among them are Clay Whipple, a promising 
young architect, son of the former sweetheart of the 
gambler, and Viola, Brookfield's niece. The youngsters 
are in love; and Clay is much exercised when he ascertains 
that Frank Hardmuth, assistant district attorney, has 
proposed to Viola. The girl greatly prefers Clay, however ; 
and the opposition the mothers of the pair evince with 
regard to the match seems likely to prove brief. 

Hardmuth comes to enlist for his suit the support of 
Brookfield. At this point, manifestly Proponent and 
Opponent are for the first time brought face to face. 
Hardmuth' s moral fibre is too weak, the gambler tells him 
in all frankness; the attorney, who has sworn to uphold 
the law, is betraying his duty, and is therefore unfit to 
become Viola's husband. When the angry lawyer stoops 
to belittle his young rival for the girl's hand, Brookfield 
retorts, "Some day the truth'll come out as to who mur- 
dered the governor-elect of this state. ... I don't want 
my niece mixed up in it." 

In a conversation between Brookfield and Clay's mother, 
we are told how Jack's "profession" came between them 
years ago. The obstacle apparently still persists; Jack 
confesses his inability to give up gambling. We get also 
the play's second reference to his unusual psychic power: 
when he was in college, Jack used to compel Helen to 
write to him, merely by fixing his mind upon the idea. 



OUTLINING THE COMPLICATION 67 

A belated visitor, Justice Prentice, formerly of Ken- 
tucky, now of the United States Supreme Court, drops in. 
After he has astonished Brookfield by casually answering 
the latter's unspoken questions, the jurist first voices the 
thesis of the play: "Every thought is active — that is, 
born of a desire — and travels from us — or it is born of the 
desire of someone else and comes to us. We send them 
out — or we take them in — that is all. . . . If we are idle 
and empty-headed, our brains are the playrooms for the 
thoughts of others — frequently rather bad. If we are 
active, whether benevolently or malevolently, our brains 
are workshops — power-houses" 

Meanwhile, the vapid Denning, now tipsy, has been 
mercilessly teasing young Whipple, who has an inherited 
aversion to cat's-eyes. One of these jewels Tom maudlinly 
persists in thrusting into Clay's face. In a moment of 
frenzy the latter youth snatches up the heavy ivory paper 
knife — which the audience has already seen Helen let fall 
by accident — and, striking Denning with it, kills him. 
Hardmuth has gone to the telephone, when Brookfield 
checks him, saying Clay himself shall have the credit of 
notifying the police. 

It will be observed that Act I is largely explanatory. 
The main characters have all been introduced; the theme 
has been defined; through the visit of the Justice, an 
element of preparation has been brought in; — and the 
battle of Brookfield versus Hardmuth is on. Clay Whipple, 
the "person in dispute," has by his rashness put a weapon 
into the Opponent's hands. But there is another weapon, 
as yet unrevealed, which chance is preparing for the 



68 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Proponent's use. If for a figure we adopt the not inappro- 
priate parlance of the prize ring, we may say that Round 
One ends with the advantage On Hardmuth's side. What 
will happen in Round Two? 

Coincidence has it that the appeal of Clay Whipple for 
a new trial, after an unfair hearing during which he has 
been condemned to death, is taken to the United States 
Supreme Court, and Justice Prentice has the deciding 
voice in the matter. Brookfield, Helen Whipple, and 
Viola call on the Justice to plead in behalf of Clay. Coinci- 
dence again has it — this time in no feeble terms — that 
Helen should be no other than the daughter of Margaret 
Price, with whom Prentice as a youth was in love. His 
letter to the old sweetheart, referring to a duel he had 
fought with a man who had frightened her with a cat's-eye 
jewel, causes the Justice to reverse his determination not 
to grant Clay a rehearing. In fact, Prentice promises to 
testify in the lad's behalf at the second trial. Later, when 
he is left alone with Margaret Price's handkerchief, her 
miniature, and the perfume of mignonette, the jurist — as 
the clock strikes two — is convinced that the spirit of the 
long-dead woman has been in that room and has "directed 
a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States." 

So Round Two in the fight is Jack Brookfield's round. 
But the battle is by no means over: the honors are merely 
even. 

Again at midnight, we are in Kentucky. While Clay 
Whipple's friends are awaiting the verdict after his second 
trial, Brookfield, thinking hard, strives for a telepathic 
influence over the one apparently friendly juryman. Jack 



OUTLINING THE COMPLICATION 69 

has just told the newspapers what he knows about Hard- 
muth's connection with the murder of the governor-elect. 
The two antagonists again come face to face, and the 
attorney threatens the death of the gambler if the "story" 
is published. "HI print it myself and paste it on the 
fences," retorts Brookfield, resolved to thwart Hard- 
muth's ambition to become governor, as well as to reckon 
with him for the "hounding of Clay to the gallows." If 
the youth is again convicted, there will be an appeal to 
the governor. What if the governor were Hardmuth? 

Brookfield's efforts at a telepathic influence over the 
juryman appear to have been not in vain. Shortly after 
Jack has learned this fact, he gets a warning that Hard- 
muth, who has now seen the printed murder charge, will 
shoot on sight. This news moves Helen to confess her 
love for the now reformed gambler. To his friend Ellinger 
— a "comic relief" character — and incidentally to the 
audience — Brookfield explains that, when all Kentucky is 
thinking about the charge against Hardmuth, the general 
thought cannot fail to reach the deliberating jury. Mean- 
while, the newspaper "story" has prevented the unscru- 
pulous lawyer's nomination for governor. 

Then Clay Whipple suddenly returns — acquitted. 
While his friends are rejoicing, Hardmuth rushes in and 
thrusts a revolver against Brookfield's body. Again Jack 
resorts to dynamic thought, with the result that the 
enraged attorney, not able even to hold the weapon in his 
hand, recoiling slowly, says, "I'd like to know — how in 
hell you did that — to me." 

It appears that Round Three has ended with the 



70 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Opponent down, if not quite out. So far as conflict is con- 
cerned, there is, in fact, little to carry tense interest over 
into the last act. However, the referee's decision has not 
yet been formally announced; and for this reason — 
among others — the spectators are entirely willing to stay 
on. 

For the last time at the witching hour we find ourselves 
in Brookfield's library. When Clay Whipple is tempted 
to revenge himself on Hardmuth by reporting for a 
newspaper the former prosecutor's trial on the murder 
charge, Jack rebukes the young man and tells him of the 
mental poison engendered by hatred. In spite of the 
women's protests, Brookfield by suggestion cures Clay of 
his senseless antipathy to the cat's-eye and sends him to 
fetch to the house Hardmuth, whose hiding-place has 
been discovered by Ellinger. While waiting, the Pro- 
ponent first practically buys his antagonist's release from 
Ellinger and then demonstrates, to the latter's profound 
amazement, that it is possible by telepathy to read the 
cards in another player's hand. 

When Clay returns with Hardmuth, Jack declares his 
resolve to help the attorney flee the state. "Hardmuth 
plannedfthe assassination of the governor- elect exactly as 
I dreamed it," Brookfield explains; "and a guilty thought 
is almost as criminal as a guilty deed. I've always had a 
considerable influence over that poor devil that's running 
away tonight, and I'm not sure that before the Judge of 
both of us the guilt isn't mostly mine." And Helen 
promises to stand by Jack as he has stood by her 
boy. 



OUTLINING THE COMPLICATION 7 1 

Simplicity and Adaptation 

In considering this basic narrative, here so roughly 
sketched, the student will note first of all its simplicity 
and its adaptation to both thesis and characters. Brook- 
field and Hardmuth fight over Clay Whipple's life and 
happiness. The protagonist's advantage lies largely — if 
by no means entirely — in the fact that he employs the 
potency of dynamic thought in his style of warfare. The 
antagonists clash first over Viola and immediately there- 
after over her lover. The attorney's profession and posi- 
tion give him unusual opportunities of offense and defense. 
It is true that luck comes to the gambler's aid, in the 
matter of coincidence already noted; but we feel that, 
even if Justice Prentice had not happened to be the man 
who had once loved and fought for Clay Whipple's grand- 
mother, nevertheless the resourceful Brookfield would 
have found means material or psychic of overcoming his 
opponent. Winning the youth's freedom, moreover, the 
gambler wins back his own self-respect and the love of the 
woman his heart desires. 

Three or four characters are used to conduct the funda- 
mental action; the others are essentially minor figures, 
some of them, like Justice Henderson, Colonel Bagley, 
and Emmett, existing merely for purposes of exposition 
and atmosphere. Mrs. Whipple's onslaught on the mind 
and sensibilities of Justice Prentice in Act II is obviously 
under the explicit direction of Brookfield. Tom Denning 
comes into the piece solely to bring out Clay's congenital 
antipathy, and, by dying, to tie the first hard knot in the 



72 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

web of conflict. Lew Ellinger, as has been noted, is for 
comic relief. Furthermore, he shares with Justice Prentice 
the role of "Attorney for the People" prescribed by the 
author. Viola is only a temporary bone of contention; 
her mother, too, merely a pawn in the game. 

Jack antagonizes Frank, who wants Viola. Clay, who 
is to have her, puts himself in Frank's power. Jack gains 
his friend and fellow-psychic, Prentice, as a potent 
auxiliary. Jack strikes a knock-out blow with his murder 
charge against Frank. Frank in his extremity would kill 
Jack, but the latter by sheer strength of thought completes 
his conquest over his opponent. Then Jack rounds out 
his achievements in the realm of the pseudo-scientific by 
abolishing Clay's fear and hatred and by taking on him- 
self a share in Hardmuth's guilt. That is the plot in its 
bare essentials. The student will have no difficulty in 
tracing its movement, the crossing of its strands, the dis- 
entangling of its threads. 

It will be observed that in this somewhat extended dis- 
cussion of a single example, little has been said of the all- 
important elements of characterization and dialogue. 
Both, however, may well be studied in the case of "The 
Witching Hour." Here we have been concerned as 
exclusively as possible with plot and its complication. 
There may be better plots in modern drama than the one 
here analyzed: certainly there are many worse. At all 
events, the student should diligently familiarize himself 
with the mechanism of many typical plays, to the end 
that the art of plotting may be mastered by the best pos- 



OUTLINING THE COMPLICATION 73 

sible means next to the actual construction of plots 
themselves, and — for this is important — with a view to 
making original plots, in due time. 

Questions and Exercises 

Note: Skill in plotting comes from much plotting, 
even in those who are born intriguers. Therefore practice 
a great deal. Do not now concern yourself with prepara- 
tion, suspense, climax, and such other elements of good 
plot-work as are discussed later, but use these ideas only 
as you now understand them. Later you will be able to 
perfect these preliminary plot-drafts by revision. 

1. In about three hundred words, make an outline of a 
plot in which the whole action is manifestly preparing for 
a great struggle in the last act, with a swiftly-brought- 
about result. 

2. Briefly outline a plot in which the complication 
occurred before the play opens, and in which, therefore, 
the whole play is made up of the conflict of forces resulting 
from the complication. 

3. Briefly outline a plot in which the complication 
occurs almost at the outstart of the first act. 

4. Briefly outline a plot in which you handle the com- 
plication to suit yourself. 

Note: In the foregoing four plots do not overlook the 
value of contributory minor complications, but do not let 
them in any sense rival the major complications — make 
them actually contributory. 

5. Point out the complications in five modern plays. 



74 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

6. Briefly outline the plots of three modern plays, 
showing clearly how the pivotal points are placed and 
how the determining forces move. 

7. In "The Witching Hour" find fourteen references to 
the basic idea of the play. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE EXPOSITION 

He [Alfieri] adds that he has made it an invariable rule to 
introduce the action by lively and passionate dialogue, so far 
as is consistent with the opening of the piece, and between 
personages who have a direct interest in the plot. — J. C. L. de 
Sismondi, The Literature of the South of Europe. 

It is Scribe's habit, in the plays which are to extend through 
five acts, to employ the whole of the first one in patiently and 
ingeniously laying out the strands of the intrigue to follow. For 
the time being he does not concern himself with amusing the 
public; he contents himself with putting it in touch with the 
situation. It is necessary that such and such events be known — 
he relates them; to a first account of them succeeds another. 
It is necessary that you make the acquaintance of the personages 
who are to conduct the action — he presents them to you one 
by one: this is Mr. So-and-so; he has such and such a character; 
he is capable, things falling out thus, of behaving himself in this 
or that manner. — Francisque Sarcey, Quarante Ans de Theatre. 

I remember reading somewhere that "the comedy of 
'Richelieu,' which has held the stage for seventy years, 
contains action, story, character, situation, suspense, con- 
trast, and picture, and it blends humor and pathos; while 
the central character is unique, sympathetic, essentially 
human, and continuously interesting." That description 
would at first glance seem to epitomize all that is most 
desirable in drama; though, on reflection, one might 
reasonably add such elements as surprise, climax, har- 
mony, logic, and truth to life. 



76 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Undoubtedly the fundamental qualities are action and 
feeling. As the rhymester puts it : 

"If you desire to write a play, 
Then here's the vital notion: 
Each act and scene should well display 
Both motion and emotion." 

And again: 

"In plays, you see, Demosthenes' old law 
Once more will fit the case without a flaw. 
Upon the rostrum and the stage, we find, 
'Tis action, action, action chains the mind." 

The playwright, having selected his starting-point and 
his main characters, and having in fancy and in plan 
allowed these latter in their juxtaposition naturally to 
work out a certain progressive action, which will include a 
complication of motives and conflicting lines of conduct, 
reactions and clashes — having come thus far, he must set 
to work to reduce this movement to a definite plot, and 
then to body forth the plot in the most effective and stir- 
ring manner. 

The Route of the Play 

As Mr. Augustus Thomas puts it, there is the route of the 
play to be considered, and this route is "much like a 
trajectory. It springs upward and outward in a fine, easy, 
even curve, mounts higher and higher to a final sharp 
crest, and then, very close to the end, drops suddenly 
off." It is the path of the sky-rocket. 



THE EXPOSITION 77 

"This route," continues Mr. Thomas, "this line, is 
made up of short scenes that partake pretty much of the 
nature of the whole. Each must have its similar rise and 
stroke. At first, when the story is unfolding, when the 
audience is not yet thoroughly keyed up, and there are at 
the same time so many new things to grasp, these scenes 
will be relatively long and thin curves. As they reach the 
summit of the route, they will thicken and shorten. Their 
importance, their weight, the blow that they give, will be 
steadily greater." 

Let us suppose that the playwright has reached that 
stage of his work when, having mapped out his drama, 
time-scheme and act-division, and being certain that he 
has sufficient material for an evening's diversion, he finds 
that he must make a beginning in the actual writing of his 
play. His first problem is that of setting forth his charac- 
ters and conveying to the audience such preliminary 
information concerning their past history as is necessary 
to a speedy comprehension of what is to follow. This is 
what is commonly called the exposition. 

An American novelist is quoted as asserting that "there 
are two types of modern play: one in which the hero and 
heroine marry, and all their troubles are over; and the 
other in which they marry, and all their troubles begin." 
At any rate, hero and heroine, or at least leading male and 
female characters, the dramatist must deal with; and 
they and the conditions in which they exist, to begin with, 
must quickly be made clear. 

"The playwright has no time to lose after the curtain 



78 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

has once risen," Professor Bliss Perry tells us, 1 asserting 
that "every moment of opening action counts heavily for 
or against his chances of interesting the audience in the 
personages of the play." Conversely, other writers 
on the subject assure us that it is futile to say any- 
thing of importance during the first five or ten minutes 
of the play, since that period will be one of disturb- 
ance caused by late-comers and by the various processes 
of self -adjustment on the part of the spectators. 
However, the whole matter depends pretty largely on the 
play itself. Late-comers not only will fail to disturb the 
audience greatly but will, indeed, be inconsiderable in 
number, if the drama is from its earliest moment suffi- 
ciently absorbing. It is said that, during the first season 
of "On Trial," spectators often ran down the aisles in 
order to reach their seats before the curtain rose. The play 
was so constructed as to grip the audience from the open- 
ing instant. Five or ten minutes of preliminary sweet 
nothings, on the contrary, will inevitably be accompanied 
by seat-slamming, programme-rustling, and the buzz of 
whispered conversation. 

In connection with a recent vaudeville playlet, there 
was printed in the programme the following note: "The 
audience is requested to follow very closely the dialogue 
from the very beginning of the play, as it all has bearing 
on situations following later in the act." Such an ad- 
monition would seem to confess an inadequacy in the 
exposition. The opening speeches in this particular 
sketch, by the way, were no more indispensable to a 

1 A Study of Prose Fiction. 



THE EXPOSITION 79 

comprehension of the plot than is usual in one-act 
plays. The note was merely a bit of over-cautiousness. 
In good dramaturgy the only way for the author to obtain 
the general attention is by his skill to command it. 

Methods of Exposition 

An old-fashioned method of presenting the exposition 
utilized a conversation between two characters, perhaps a 
pair of courtiers or of menials, who told each other facts 
which they and the audience well knew were familiar to 
both speakers. Such a device, in fact, is employed in so 
recent a play as Thompson Buchanan's melodrama, "Life." 
And in even so carefully constructed a piece of dramaturgy 
as Mr. Edward Knoblauch's " Marie-Odile," we find the 
novice and the Mother Superior re-informing each other — 
for our benefit — of the circumstances of the young girl's 
upbringing in the convent. 

Formerly, French drama provided a confidant for the 
hero, a confidante for the heroine, largely for expository pur- 
poses. Various critics, including Mr. William Archer, have 
remarked how, in "His House in Order," Sir Arthur 
Pinero hits upon the scheme of having a reporter interview 
the private secretary of a leading character — a device 
similar to that employed by Mr. William Dean Howells in 
"The Rise of Silas Lapham." Since the journalist lacks 
the information to begin with, we can listen while 
he acquires it and not feel that probability has been 
strained. The scene, however, is none the less non-dram- 
atic; though the arrangement is more admirable than 
that of the traditional footman and the parlor-maid, who 



80 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

have opened such hosts of plays by gossiping about master 
and mistress. Many a first act, too, has been wearisomely 
delayed while two characters have sat on a bench or a log, 
and one has told the other "the story of his life." No 
matter that they rose and "crossed" from time to time, 
nor even that the orchestra at certain emotional moments 
in the narrative discoursed "creepy" music; the story- 
telling was only narrative and not drama. 

In recent years the telephone has supplied so facile a 
substitute for the confidant that its use in a new play now 
is likely to arouse ridicule, especially since the device was 
satirized, along with many others equally overworked, by 
Sir James M. Barrie in "A Slice of Life." 

Mr. Brander Matthews 1 truly says that the exposition 
"is one of the tests by which we can guage the dexterity 
of a dramatist, and by which we can measure his command 
over the resources of his craft. Some playwrights have to 
perfection a knack of taking the playgoer right into the 
middle of things in the opening scenes of the first act, with a 
simplicity apparently so straightforward that he has never 
a suspicion of the artfulness whereby he has been supplied 
with all sorts of information." These attainments are 
certainly the ones most worth striving for in expository 
writing: to get in medias res with the least possible delay, 
and to convey the information "sugar-coated." 

Time and Manner of Exposition 

The exposition belongs, of course, as early as possible in 
the first act. In the beginning the audience is naturally 
1 A Study of the Drama. 



THE EXPOSITION 8 1 

patient and willing, if need be, to wait a while for the 
action to get under way. Later, when the story has been 
fairly started, anything that obviously holds it up will be 
resented. Of course, the amount of exposition required 
varies with the play; but it stands to reason that the sooner 
the dramatic struggle can be broached and the emotional 
interest of the audience aroused, the better will be the 
chances for success. 

It is true that a number of successful dramatists still 
employ something of the more leisurely method of Scribe, 
which gives over much of the first act to the process of 
simply laying the foundation; witness "The Hawk," 
"The Phantom Rival," and "Outcast." More and more, 
however, it is becoming the fashion to combine the exposi- 
tion with the action, or at least to start with a scene of 
real dramatic movement and then to convey the needed 
information, disguised as action. Commentators rarely 
fail to point out that Shakespeare begins "Romeo and 
Juliet" with a quarrel between the servitors of the 
Montagues and the Capulets, which concretely illustrates 
the feud of the two houses. Thereafter the characteriz- 
ing dialogue of Montague, Lady Montague, Benvolio, and 
Romeo proceeds apace with a conversational exposition. 

First of all, then, the exposition should be clear; second, 
it should be brief; and, third, it should, if possible, be 
emotionalized by combination with the action. Failing 
this last, there is the device of the general conversation 
between shifting characters, like that which Mr. George 
M. Cohan employs in "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford." 
The fragmentary and frequently interrupted dialogue at 



82 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

least gives the impression of movement and of actuality. 
An excellent example of this sort of exposition is afforded 
by Mr. Augustus Thomas's play, "As a Man Thinks." 
The problem before the writer is, first, to introduce Dr. 
and Mrs. Seelig, their daughter Vedah, and her betrothed, 
Benjamin De Lota, all Jews; and Vedah's other lover* 
Julian Burrill, and Frank Clayton and Mrs. Clayton, 
Gentiles. Second, to make it known that Clayton, who 
has already been forgiven by his wife for one infidelity, has 
since been involved in an affair with a Parisian model. 
Third, to convey the further information that De Lota, 
not only was formerly a suitor of Mrs. Clayton's, but also 
has served a term in a French prison after conviction on a 
criminal charge. The author, to the expressed delight of 
many critics, deftly manages the revelation of this infor- 
mation bit by bit, through a series of fragmentary con- 
versations, allowing the significant facts to reach the 
audience at the same time that they impinge upon the 
consciousness of certain characters in whom they must 
necessarily produce a strong emotional reaction. It is, 
accordingly, of interest not only to know that De Lota 
was once a prisoner, but also to observe the effect of the 
revelation upon his fiancee; not only to learn of Clayton's 
second lapse from marital fidelity, but also to note the 
manner in which his wife receives the information. Fur- 
thermore, the exposition is skilfully unified through con- 
nection with Burrill's figurine of the dancing girl, for which 
Mimi, the French model, posed. As the statuette is new, 
all comers are instigated to discuss it and so to refer to its 
original, who is further identified by means of a photograph 
brought by Burrill. 



THE EXPOSITION 83 

Disregarding for the moment the question of the coinci- 
dence involved — which will be considered in a later 
chapter — we cannot but realize that Mr. Thomas's method 
of exposition in this play is masterly in its effectiveness. 
An even more striking instance is to be found in Mr. 
Elmer L. Reizenstein's "On Trial." In fact, it would be 
hard to cite a parallel for the gripping tenseness of the 
opening instant of this melodrama — the scene in the 
courtroom, the trial in full progress, the prisoner on the 
verge of conviction. While admitting that in a sense 
"On Trial" is a "freak" play— "a story told backward"— 
and therefore abnormal, we should feel nevertheless that 
its example is worth imitating in respect at least of this 
initial interest and clarity. 

There is, indeed, no valid reason why almost any play 
nowadays, whether of story or of characters, should not 
set off its indispensable sky-rocket plot within a very few 
moments after the curtain first rises. We have passed 
the period of lazy devices in this process, and of leisurely 
and patent procedure. Exposition not only should be 
clear; it should be brief and dramatic. 

Questions and Exercises 

1. Draw as carefully as you can a diagram of your con- 
ception of Mr. Thomas's "trajectory," pages 76 and 77. 

2. In your own words define the exposition. 

3. What methods of exposition, other than those noted 
in the text, have you observed? 

4. Criticise one of them. 



84 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

5. Try to suggest a fresh device for presenting the 
exposition. 

6. Invent a fundamental opening situation for a plot; 
then give the exposition in outline, saying how you would 
present it to the audience. 

7. Could your plan profitably be altered so as to work 
in the expository information along with the action? 

8. Make a^rapid but well considered draft of so much 
of the first act as would be required to include all the 
exposition. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE MANAGEMENT OF PREPARATION 
IN THE PLOT 

The liner with hastily constructed boilers will flounder when 
she comes to essay the storm; and no stoking however vigorous, 
no oiling however eager, if delayed till then, will avail to aid 
her to ride through successfully. It is not the time to strengthen 
a wall when the hurricane threatens; prop and stay will not 
brace it then. Then the thing that tells is the plodding, slow, 
patient, brick-by-brick work, that only half shows down there 
at the foot half -hidden in the grass, obscure, unnoted. No genius 
is necessary for this sort of work, only great patience and a 
willingness to plod, for the time being. — Frank Norris, The 
Mechanics of Fiction. 

There is no idle detail; not one that lacks its utility in 
the action; no word that is not to have at an appointed moment 
its repercussion in the comedy. And this word — I do not know 
how the thing is done — it is the dramatic author's gift — this word 
buries itself in our memory and reappears just at the moment 
when it is to throw a bright light on some incident which we 
were not expecting, but which nevertheless seems quite natural, 
which charms us at the same time by the fact that it has been 
unforseen and by the impression that we ought to have fore- 
seen it. — Francisque Sarcey, Quarante Ans de Thedtre. (The 
reference is to Monsieur Feydeau's "La Dame de chez Maxim."') 

With the exposition set forth, and his chief characters 
introduced, the playwright is face to face with the develop- 
ment and the complication of his intrigue. If, in fact, he 
has not already largely done so, he must now proceed with 
the interweaving of the strands of character and conduct. 



86 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Here again logic is his chief guide. What his people are 
and the conditions in which they are placed will determine 
both what they will do and their reactions from the behav- 
ior of others. The playwright must first be sure that the 
personages do things that would reasonably and naturally 
result. But he must also select from this field of possible 
conduct the deeds that will develop his plot so that it may 
best illustrate his theme, or at least so that his story will 
be of the utmost interest. 

At the same time that the dramatist is informing his 
audience of events that have happened in the past, he 
should be making ready for the things that are to occur in 
the future. This is the "art of preparation," emphasized 
by Dumas fils, as the art of the theatre. I do not mean 
that a play should develop along a route which everyone 
foresees after the first few lines. Under such conditions 
there can be no suspense, to say nothing of surprise. But 
many matters that are to come up later require advance 
explanation, in order that, when they do happen, they 
may be instantly and completely understood. 

In "The Whole Art of the Stage," which was written at 
Cardinal Richelieu's command, the Abbe d'Aubignac 
treats this subject at some length. He says, in the words 
of the quaint translation of 1684: 

"But there are another sort of things, which are to be 
laid as a foundation to build others upon, according to 
the Rules of Probability, and yet nevertheless do not at 
all discover these second ones, which they are to produce; 
not only because there is no necessity they should come 
to pass in consequence of the first; but also because the 



THE MANAGEMENT OF PREPARATION IN THE PLOT 87 

first are shew'd with colours and pretexts so probable, 
according to the state of the Affairs of the Stage, that the 
Minds of the Spectators pass them over, not thinking that 
from thence there can spring any new Incident, so that 
the preparation of an Incident, is not to tell or do any- 
thing that can discover it, but rather that may give occa- 
sion to it without discovering it; and all the Art of the 
Poet consists in finding Colours and Pretexts to settle 
these Preparations, so, that the Spectator may be con- 
vinc'd, that that is not thrown into the Body of the Play 
for any other design than what appears to him. , . . 

" But the main thing to be remembred, is, that all that 
is said or done as a Preparative or Seed for things to come, 
must have so apparent a Reason, and so powerful a 
Colour to be said and done in that place, that it may seem 
to have been introduc'd only for that, and that it never 
give a hint to prevent [foretell] those Incidents, which it 
is to prepare." 

Examples of Preparation 

Preparation is of various kinds. It may be an impres- 
sive prophecy, a word let fall unwittingly, a stammering 
admission wrung from a guilty conscience, or even a bit of 
"business" or pantomime. A letter is brought in and 
laid on the mantel, to be discovered later at a crucial 
instant by an involved personage. The mannerism, 
perhaps the antipathy, of a character is briefly mentioned 
at an early moment in order that, when it presently dis- 
plays itself with significant consequences, we may be ready 
to comprehend and to recognize it. Mr. Augustus Thomas 



88 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

explains how, in his play, "The Witching Hour," he pre- 
pared even his "properties" for the murder that was to be 
committed. "A dagger," he says, "would have been too 
lethal, would have startled the audience too much. So a 
two-foot ivory paper-knife from my own desk served 
instead. The audience had to learn three things about it 
— its position, its purpose, and its ability to kill. The first 
two were accomplished by having a girl pick it up to cut 
a magazine; the third by a woman's knocking it to the 
floor, where it made a resounding bump." All this prep- 
aration is merely to avoid puzzling the audience with a 
minor question at a critical moment — a precaution upon 
which may easily depend the success of a play. 

In "Kick In," to cite a recent instance, not only is a 
revolver displayed, remarked, and ostentatiously placed 
in a drawer, but a hypodermic syringe filled with cocaine is 
discussed at length so that the spectators will promptly 
understand, when both are used during a fight which 
serves as the climax of the play. 

Again, in "Under Cover" much is said in advance about 
a very conspicuous burglar alarm, which is to be sounded 
later at a crucial moment. So emphatic was this bit of 
"preparation," indeed, that Mr. Channing Pollock said he 
waited through the rest of the act to see that burglar alarm 
used. 

The Triangle of Information 

Mr. Thomas refers to what is practically another phase of 
preparation, when he cites examples of Scribe's "triangle 
of information." "In one of his pieces a priest tells a 



THE MANAGEMENT OF PREPARATION IN THE PLOT 89 

casual acquaintance, in answer to queries as to the respon- 
sibilities of the confessional, that the first man he ever 
confessed had owned to a murder. Then the principal 
character of the play comes in, says 'Good day' to the 
priest, and, turning to the other man, explains: 'You 
know, I was the first penitent Father Blank ever had.' 
In a flash the audience is startled, stirred, and at the same 
time pleased. Little bits of recognition, such as that, 
make the spectator feel that he has discovered something." 

On his wedding day Mr. Smith puts ten one-hundred- 
dollar bills in an envelope, which his "best man" is to 
convey to the officiating clergyman. Perhaps years after- 
ward, at a dinner, various ministers get to naming the 
sums they have received as marriage fees, and Mr. Smith's 
rector remarks that the largest amount ever given him was 
one hundred dollars. Naturally Smith is startled. He 
questions the clergyman in private and is ready to lodge 
an accusation against his groomsman. The information 
has been conveyed by means of the dramatic triangle. 

Mr. Thomas himself makes a telling use of this device in 
the first act of " As a Man Thinks. ' ' Burrill has told Vedah 
Seelig how Mimi, the model, out of gratitude to the man 
who had got her a place in Antoine's theatre, had dragged 
off her friends to the court house in an effort to free that 
man, when he was on trial upon a criminal charge. Some 
time later Benjamin De Lota, Vedah's fiance, arrives and, 
becoming interested in Burrill's statuette of Mimi, casu- 
ally remarks that he got the model her place with Antoine. 
Vedah, like the audience, is acquiring information in a 
startling, indirect fashion. 



90 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Again, in Act II of the same play, Judge Hoover, coming 
to the home of his son-in-law Clayton, relates how he has 
just chanced to see DeLota entering his lodging-house in 
company with a woman. This woman dropped on the 
pavement a libretto of "Atda" which Hoover has brought 
with him. As it happens that the audience has just seen 
Clayton himself mark this libretto and hand it to his wife, 
who went off in company with De Lota, presumably to the 
opera, the knowledge of her apparent infidelity is thus 
conveyed to both husband and audience through a triangle 
of information. If the co-incidence here involved is 
credible, certainly the bit of preparation has served its 
purpose well. 

For still another example of this device, take Mr. W. C. 
De Mille's play, "The Woman." A political boss and his 
son-in-law have set out to ruin the reputation of an 
unknown woman once the mistress of a rival. This 
woman's identity is revealed to both the hotel telephone 
operator and the audience when, first, her former lover 
calls her up to warn her, and, a few minutes later, the 
boss's son-in-law calls up his own wife: both ask for the 
same number. 

Explanation in Advance 

Naturally there are many sorts of preparation other 
than those just cited. The general principle is that, 
whatever is to be abruptly utilized at some important 
later moment in the play — whether character, "property," 
or fact — must in advance be made clear and memorable 
to the audience, but not destructive of surprise. A crucial 



THE MANAGEMENT OF PREPARATION IN THE PLOT 9 1 

instant in a dramatic conflict is manifestly no time for 
explaining comparative trifles. Necessary explanations 
should always be made while there is yet leisure, and 
when emotional tension need not suffer by interruption. 

The thing for which the preparation is made may be, 
for example, simply a bit of dialogue. The most pleas- 
urable moment in that interesting play, "The Dummy," 
comes when the sleeping lad, whom the unsuspecting 
crooks are harboring as a deaf-mute, suddenly exclaims, 
"I'm a detectuv!" The audience's delight, however, is 
dependent on the fact that already at other important 
moments in the play the boy has consciously used the 
same amusing phrase. 

Again, the preparation may be made in advance of the 
introduction of a character: witness Ragueneau's speech 
descriptive of the grotesque and terrible Cyrano, which 
smoothes the way for an instant recognition of that 
doughty Gascon when he abruptly rises above the heads 
of the crowd in the Hotel de Bourgogne and shakes his 
menacing cane at the actor Montfleury. As a matter of 
fact, stage heroes rarely walk on before they have been 
talked about. 

Preparation, it will be seen, in a sense merges with 
exposition. This is markedly the case in "On Trial," for 
instance, where the courtroom prologues are ingeniously 
contrived to prepare us for the scenes of melodrama to be 
enacted before our eyes instead of being merely described 
by the witnesses. 

Readers of plays and theatre-goers can readily identify 
innumerable examples of every sort of preparation. As 



92 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

has been made clear, the "art" in its simpler forms at 
least, is one which the dramatist dare not neglect; while 
in its subtler phases it becomes one of the most valuable 
aids to the expert craftsman. First of all, the beginner 
must make sure that no sudden bewilderment can arise 
at a crucial moment when distracted attention would be 
fatal. He will find in practice that a frequent procedure 
is to work back through the play — or, better, the pre- 
liminary scenario — and to insert, where it best fits in, the 
preparation demanded by later developments. Ordinarily 
this should not prove a difficult matter. But the pre- 
caution is indispensable. 

As for the more complicated forms of preparation — the 
kinds referred to by Sarcey in the second quotation at 
the head of this chapter — manifestly no rules can be laid 
down for their practice. It is "the dramatic author's 
gift;" and it probably can be neither developed nor cul- 
tivated by any means other than the study of great 
models and much laborious exercise in invention. 

Questions and Exercises 

i. Cite as many instances as you can of "preparation" 
in plays. 

2. Cite one or two from novels. 

3. How do the forms differ in the two literary types, if 
at all? 

4. Invent two complete "triangle of information" 
situations, giving one in rough outline, the other in full 
dialogue. 



THE MANAGEMENT OF PREPARATION IN THE PLOT 93 

5. Devise the necessary " preparation' ' for lending 
effectiveness to any tentative play climaxes you may 
have in mind. 

6. In several noteworthy plays show how a lack of 
careful "preparation" would have proved a serious 
drawback. 



CHAPTER IX 



SUSPENSE AND SURPRISE 

To sum up: when once a play has begun to move, its move- 
ment ought to proceed continuously and with gathering momen- 
tum; or, if it stands still for a space, the stoppage ought to be 
deliberate and purposeful. It is fatal when the author thinks 
it is moving, while in fact it is only revolving on its own axis. 
— William Archer, Play-Making. 

There are two theories in the theatre: the theory of expecta- 
tion and the theory of surprise; in other words, some authors 
want the public let into the secret of the play, while others prefer 
that the spectators should not be initiated, but should guess 
if they can or be surprised if they cannot guess. I am of the 
latter party. — Alexandre Dumas fils. Note to "Le Demi- 
Monde" 

The interest of the story must not simply be maintained 
after the "exciting moment:" it must be constantly 
ened, rising step by step, pausing only at the minor 
climaxes which mark the breathing-spaces, and then taking 
up its ascent again until the main climax is reached. 

It would be only too easy to cite good examples of this 
ever-increasing tension toward climax. To tell in a 
general way how to attain it, on the other hand, is no 
simple matter. There is no power on the part of the 
dramatist that depends more completely upon a native 
endowment than this ability to screw up the emotional 
interest in a play from point to point, without ever allow- 
ing the key to slip in one's fingers and the tension to 
slacken. 



SUSPENSE AND SURPRISE 95 

Suspense the Chief Element of Rising Tension 

The element upon which interest in the drama chiefly 
depends is that of suspense. Suspense is largely an 
anxious curiosity — emotional, of course — to know what is 
going to result from certain given causes and what in turn 
will happen as the consequence of these results. 

A and B are bitter enemies whom circumstances have 
for long kept apart. A leaves the room on a brief errand, 
and B, not knowing where he is, enters. The evident 
question is : What will happen when A returns? Undoubt- 
edly some form of conflict, for this has been clearly indi- 
cated. Woe be to the playwright who fails to gratify such 
an expectation, once he has aroused it! And when the 
conflict has come and gone, it must leave in its train other 
still more absorbing possibilities of struggle — unless, 
indeed, it be the end of the play. 

It is not to be understood that the process of continued 
and rising tension must be hastened forward with never a 
moment of delay from the first curtain to the last. On the 
contrary, the element of suspense itself may often be best 
heightened by means of pause. To play on the word 
justifiably, expectation is held up — suspended. One must 
simply make sure that whatever delay is admitted has 
been carefully calculated with reference to its possible 
effect: it will either whet general curiosity as desired, or 
dissipate it. 

An Example of Suspense 

Supreme suspense is best revealed through a highly 
emotionalized situation that is held, revolved, viewed from 



96 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

one angle after another, rather than hastily terminated, 
and that inevitably gathers force from the very process of 
delay, always providing the movement is constantly 
upward from a lower stage of tension to a higher. For a 
striking example consult the bedroom scene of "The Gay 
Lord Quex," which has been practically duplicated, by 
the way, in "Under Cover." In "UAnge gardien" of 
Monsieur Andre Picard there is a remarkably similar 
instance of tension. Therese Duvigneau has discovered 
the amour of Georges Charmier and his hostess Suzanne 
Trelart, whose husband Therese has threatened to inform 
if Georges does not instantly leave the Trelarts' chateau. 
Determined to silence this strange guardian angel, Char- 
mier forces upon her a tete-a-tete the outcome of which 
the audience naturally awaits with keenest interest. Dur- 
ing this interview, little by little the true character of 
Therese, hitherto unguessed, reveals itself; and a conflict 
which started in mutual hatred terminates in the most 
unexpected manner possible. In "The Gay Lord Quex" 
we assist at a stubborn battle of wits, relieved at the end 
by a touch of chivalry; in "UAnge gardien" the struggle is 
one of intense passions, and it is by so much the more 
dramatic. At the end of Monsieur Picard's gripping if 
morbid climax, moreover, we are left in the utmost eager- 
ness to learn the outcome of the bizarre situation. 

In this connection, too, the novice, whether aiming at 
the more artificial or the serious drama, may well consider 
the method of Monsieur Henri Bernstein, who always 
works up his crescendo to an apparent climax of revelation, 
only to seize it afresh and carry it on up to still loftier and 



SUSPENSE AND SURPRISE 97 

more thrilling heights. Thus, in "UAssaut" the hero, 
alone vvith his fiancee, forcefully refutes the charges against 
his integrity, only to break down at what seems the grand 
climax and confess his guilt. Or, in "Israel" the tortured 
mother succeeds in persuading her son to call off the duel 
he is involved in. The curtain seems just on the point of 
falling, when an idea suddenly strikes him and he begins 
the gradual extortion of the confession that the Jew he 
hates is his own father. These last instances are here cited 
for their technical skill, without regard to the question of 
their artificiality — of which more later. 

Surprise 

This leads us naturally to a consideration of the ele- 
ment of surprise, which furnishes a delicate problem for 
the dramatist, since it depends upon a certain degree of 
mystification. Mr. George M. Cohan, in his "Hello, 
Broadway!" amusingly satirizes the professorial warnings 
against keeping an important secret from the audience, a 
procedure said to account for the failures of numerous 
plays. Everybody knows that, in spite of the objection 
raised by Lessing and other critics, one of the chief 
pleasures of the theatre results from the shock which 
follows an unexpected revelation or turn of events. "Ar- 
sene Lupin," for instance, is chiefly concerned with the 
pursuit of a certain bold and mysterious burglar; and, 
though the audience is kept in the dark as to the thief's 
identity until some time in the third act, the interest of 
the play does not suffer. 



98 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

In the case of " Under Cover," as has been remarked, 
it is not until the last few minutes of the piece that we 
learn that the "smuggler" hero is in reality a secret service 
detective who has been following the trail of a grafting 
customs official. The validity of Mr. William Archer's 
contention 1 that the majority of subsequent audiences will 
be apprised of the startling disclosures and mechanical 
trues of the first night of a play is certainly discredited by 
the success of this "daring innovation." As a matter of 
fact, Mr. Archer greatly overestimates the amount of 
advance information possessed by the average playgoer. 
He assures us that "the clock- trick in ' Raffles' was none 
the less amusing because every one was on the lookout for 
it." Personally, I must subscribe myself as a chronic 
playgoer who was entirely unprepared for this ingenious 
method of escape adopted by the "amateur cracksman." 
Moreover, it was apparent that the great majority of the 
audience shared in the complete surprise. One perhaps 
reads about such matters in the reviewer's column, but 
does one generally retain them in memory? As for 
"Arsene Lupin," the masked lift similarly utilized at the 
close of that similar play was also entirely unexpected. 
The identity of the burglar, however, was vaguely recalled 
in advance. And the chief trouble with "Under Cover" is 
precisely that the experienced playgoer, knowing that the 
hero of a melodrama, in love with an honest girl, cannot 
possibly be permitted to remain a crook and cannot be 
satisfactorily "reformed," and having heard mention of a 
mysterious "R. J." as a world-beating sleuth, instinctively 

1 Play-Making. 



SUSPENSE AND SURPRISE 99 

senses from an early moment what the author is at such 
pains to conceal — that Stephen Denby and R. J. are one 
and the same. In other words, for the sophisticated at 
least, the surprise is diminished, if not defeated. I for one 
would certainly be far from grateful to a neighbor at the 
performance of "Under Cover" who would take the trouble 
to warn me in advance of Denby's real business. And I 
am no more grateful to the critic who details to me the 
plot of any new play that I am likely to have an oppor- 
tunity to see performed. "Within the Law," I remember 
proved quite tame to me, because I had read the plot — 
the principal part of melodrama — so often before I saw 
the production. 

In another recent play in which Mr. Roi Cooper Megrue 
has had a hand, "It Pays to Advertise," there are some 
effective bits of surprise. One comes when the apparently 
stern father, who has violently antagonized the girl of 
his son's choice, suddenly proves to be merely conspiring 
with her to stimulate the youth to enterprise. Much more 
delightful is the totally unexpectable moment when the 
Parisian "countess," before whom everyone has spoken 
so freely on private and personal matters in the belief that 
she cannot understand English, abruptly drops her voluble 
French and starts talking in Bowery lingo. 

Although "crude surprise" is, indeed, to be avoided, a 
story play that gave the spectator no gentle shocks at 
unexpected turns would be unquestionably handicapped 
in its bid for favor. Knowing the story of a new play 
before one sees it does not prevent one's taking pleasure 
in it, as one often does in a second performance; but the 



IOO THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

pleasure then is somewhat different. The main source of 
interest, of course, lies in watching the reaction of events 
upon the given characters. Still, we always take keen de- 
light in unguessed means of escape from seemingly blind- 
alley situations, especially when skill has entered into 
the preparation for the surprise. 

In "The Playboy of the Western World," for example, 
when the swaggering Christy Mahon, just arrayed in his 
new clothes, has — in words — deepened the wound he gave 
his father to the point where the old man was "cleft with 
one blow to the breeches belt," it is certainly pleasant to 
behold without warning the supposedly dead Mahon 
Senior suddenly appear in quest of his son. Fortunately, 
however, this shock of surprise is not kept for the climac- 
teric moment of Christy's triumph in the sports, but 
occurs some time before. In consequence, we have the 
added pleasure of anticipation in watching to see what will 
happen when the conquering hero is confronted with his 
battered "Da," and how Pegeen Mike will take the 
unexpected downfall of a poet-lover robed by her in 
romantic illusion. We have the double delight of surprise, 
again, when after being "killed in Kerry and Mayo too'' 
old Mahon comes to life a second time. "Expectation 
mingled with uncertainty is one of the charms of the 
theatre." 

How Much to Keep from the Audience 

As for keeping a secret from the audience, this tentative 
rule, nowadays often cited, may possibly be of service: 
If the information withheld be essential to an understand- 



SUSPENSE AND SURPRISE IOI 

ing of what is happening on the stage, failure is probably 
inevitable; but, on the other hand, if the concealment 
takes place without obscuring the action or unduly bewil- 
dering the spectator, it may prove a source of added 
pleasure at the moment of revelation. 

The skill of exposition, as we have seen, often manifests 
itself in the way the author parcels out the information to 
his audience bit by bit. Meanwhile, he is keeping secret 
after secret, for a longer or a shorter period; and his 
entire play will, in a sense, have to proceed upon the same 
plan. "On Trial" is a remarkable example. 

In all drama some eventualities are predicted, others are 
merely foreshadowed, while still others are abruptly pre- 
sented without preparation. In many cases, nothing 
short of the innate dramatic instinct could be relied upon 
to determine which of the three courses ought to be fol- 
lowed. 

One common failing is the practice of telling too much in 
advance, which generally results in useless repetitions as 
well as the blunting of the dramatic point. For instance, 
in Messrs. Paul Armstrong and Wilson Mizner's melo- 
drama, "The Greyhound," a climacteric scene in which 
the detective outwits the sharper in a game of cards is 
rendered tame because it has already been explained just 
how the scheme will be worked. The reader will doubtless 
be able to multiply similar instances from his own experi- 
ence as a playgoer. 

In that extraordinary psychological comedy already 
referred to in the present chapter, "L 'Ange gardien" these 
matters of surprise and mystification, in their relation to 



102 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

the element of suspense, are well illustrated. Frederic 
Trelart and his pretty young wife Suzanne are entertain- 
ing a house-party at their chateau, including the latter's 
lover, an impetuous artist, Georges Charmier, and his 
good-natured friend, Gounouilhac. In the course of the 
first act, the "good Gounou," having been mercilessly 
bantered by Georges, repeatedly threatens him with a 
practical joke by way of revenge. Presently the guests 
go for a stroll in the night air, after turning out all the 
lights by means of a switch located just inside the door. 
A few minutes later Madame Trelart and the painter meet 
clandestinely in the pitch-dark room, and presently the 
lights are switched on for the space of five seconds, after 
which someone is heard rapidly retreating along the path. 
The consternation of Suzanne and Georges is naturally 
shared by the audience. Who was it that turned on the 
lights? Not Monsieur Trelart, probably; for he would not 
have gone away. But, then, it must have been someone 
who has gone to inform him! Georges, however, recalls 
the threat of Gounouilhac and insists that they are simply 
the victims of the latter's promised vengeance. 

The unsolved problem, of course, carries the keenest 
interest over into the second act; but the author is too 
skilful to weary his audience by a prolonged mystification. 
Though there is at first some difficulty in getting any 
reassurance from Gounouilhac, he presently makes it 
known that he was not responsible for the tell-tale 
illumination, and that none of the others of the party 
followed Suzanne to the rendezvous. So the thing is 
narrowed down to Therese Duvigneau, who very soon 



SUSPENSE AND SURPRISE 103 

acknowledges that it was she who manipulated the elec- 
tric switch. 

The judicious employment of this frank device — the 
careful preparation for the sudden shock of the brilliant 
illumination after the total darkness, with all its implica- 
tions and the consequent alarm — may perhaps seem to 
smack of artificiality and the melodramatic. However, 
"VAnge gardien," far from being primarily a mere story 
play, is in reality a profoundly subtle study in psychology, 
comprising, in addition to a group of cleverly drawn types, 
at least one full-length portrait, so remarkably complex, 
so nuance, indeed, that Monsieur Henri de Regnier, com- 
menting on the piece, was led to suggest that such minute 
characterization belongs rather to the novel than to the 
play. The point is that wise and competent dramatists 
do not scruple to devise fresh theatrical expedients and 
to make the best use of all the possibilities of plot, even 
when engaged in the sincerest and most thoroughgoing 
realism. The interest in u VAnge gardien" passes quickly to 
the psychological — if, indeed, it were ever primarily any- 
thing else; but it is cunningly fostered and heightened 
step by step through scenes of suspense to a powerful 
climax and an equally moving conclusion. 

Danger of Misleading the Audience 

If it be dangerous to mystify your audience, it is usually 
fatal seriously to mislead it. To set forth manifest in- 
citements to expect certain important developments, and 
then not to furnish them, will scarcely be forgiven. What- 



104 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

ever reasonable anticipation is aroused must be fulfilled. 
Among the things the audience has a special right to 
expect and demand, as most writers on the drama have 
pointed out, are those incidents which are of such vital 
importance that they must not be allowed to take place off 
stage — what Sarcey called the scenes a faire. Here again 
the inborn gift is the final guide. What may be narrated? 
What must be actually shown? I remember that, when 
Mr. Booth Tarkington's interesting and popular story, 
"The Gentleman from Indiana," was presented in a stage 
version by the gifted Edward Morgan, the play failed 
quite obviously because the crucial events were not ex- 
hibited in action, but merely described in dialogue. It is 
a mistake to let essentials happen "off stage," whether 
prior to the play, or between acts. 

Finally, in this connection, be it remembered that the 
audience is entitled not only to the scenes it has been led 
to anticipate, but also to the treatment indicated from the 
beginning. Many an author has really made a promising 
start and got no farther, usually because the temptation 
to let drama degenerate into melodrama, or comedy into 
farce, has been irresistible. 

Dramatic interest, then, is best maintained and height- 
ened by means of suspense, the very nature of which indi- 
cates delay, but delay without relaxation. Surprise also 
serves the playwright's purpose in this respect, though 
it is a means which must be handled with caution, owing 
to the often dangerous element of mystification it involves. 
Coleridge has pointed out that Shakespeare — in contra- 
/ distinction, one sees, to Dumas fils — relies rather on 



SUSPENSE AND SURPRISE 105 

expectation in his dramaturgy than on surprise. "As 
the feeling with which we startle at a shooting star, com- 
pared with that of watching the sunrise at the pre- 
established moment, such and so low is surprise compared 
with expectation." 1 Nevertheless, this lower expedient, so 
long as it is not overdone, has its effectiveness and its legiti- 
mate place in the drama. And more than one noteworthy 
character-play or play of ideas has gained excellent advan- 
tage from the employment of this device as of all the others- 

Questions and Exercises 

1. Commit to memory the first sentence of this chapter. 

2. Make a diagram of any play plot, showing the prog- 
ress of suspense and surprise. 

3. Do the same for one of your own plots. 

4. Point out the use of suspense in any modern play. 

5. Show how augmented suspense is used to work up 
to a climax. 

6. What do you understand by a minor climax, and the 
resolution of suspense, as a part of the main action? 

7. Cite an instance in which the expectation of the 
audience is favorably disappointed by introducing a 
surprise. 

8. What do you understand by crescendo in a plot? 

9. Is it permissible to mislead an audience for a short 
time in order to effect a surprise? Support your answer 
by giving examples. 

10. Is there any safe middle ground between misleading 
an audience and mystifying them for the sake of a surprise? 

1 Literary Remains. 



1 ■ r 



CHAPTER X 



CLIMAX AND THE ENDING 

The climax must seem inevitable, though perhaps unexpected. 
The reader [the spectator, in the theatre] will almost surely look 
back and trace the movement of forces in the story which lead 
from the first causes up to the climax, and he demands that the 
climax be what its name implies — a ladder; and he is keen to note 
missing and unsafe rungs. It is important to remember that 
while one may slide down a ladder, he must ascend it step by step. 
The gradation toward the climax is no small matter. — J. Berg 
Esenwein, Writing the Short-Story. 

The "highest point" or "climax" of a typical drama marks the 
division of the two processes out of which the plot of a play is 
made. These processes are frequently described as the "com- 
plication" — the weaving together of the various threads of 
interest — and the "resolution" — the untangling of the threads 
again. "Tying" and "untying" are still simpler terms; and the 
French word for untying, the denouement, has grown familiar to 
us, though it is often used for what is technically known as the 
"catastrophe," rather than as descriptive of the entire "falling 
action," of which the catastrophe is only the final stage. — Bliss 
Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction. 

The tension of emotional interest in drama should be 
gradually increased from the beginning up to the highest 
point, known as the climax. To be sure, the rate of speed 
is not always the same. At first, the movement will neces- 
sarily be more leisurely; but as the summit is approached 
the pace should be quickened. 

Nevertheless, as has been indicated, there are resting- 
points on the way — particularly at the end of the first act, 



CLIMAX AND THE ENDING 107 

in a three-act play, and also at the close of the second in a 
four-act play. As a rule, however, a sort of temporary 
spurt — a minor climax — just before each of these minor 
rests is attained, serves to compensate, as it were, for the 
short delay to come. 

Naturally, such other minor pauses as occur during the 
acts must be skilfully handled lest they result in actual 
lapses of interest and that broken-backed effect produced 
where the attention is alternately gripped and relaxed. 
In proportion as the earlier, and therefore minor, cli- 
maxes are high, the danger of flat reactions becomes 
greater. 

The climax is "the scene where the dramatic forces 
which are contending for the mastery are most evenly 
balanced. One cannot say whether the hero or the 
intriguer, the protagonist or the antagonist, will conquer. 
It is the point of greatest tension between the opposing 
powers." 1 Generally speaking, it is the function of climax 
in a play to illustrate with accumulated and electrifying 
brilliancy the theme, or at least the central incident or 
character, by exhibiting it in the moments when the 
struggle can grow no more tense, but must be decided. 

Climax and the Falling Movement 

The climacteric moments at the ends of acts are often 
referred to as "curtains. " Modern dramaturgy has shown 
a distinct dislike to "curtains" whose artificiality is glar- 
ingly apparent. "Formerly," Sarcey observes, in dis- 

1 A Study of Prose Fiction, Bliss Perry. 



108 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

cussing the "Francillon" of Dumas the younger, "the 
author tried to end an act on some effective speech which 
gave impetus to the piece and aroused curiosity as to the 
next act. In this business Dumas pere was inimitable. At 
present we like to end with some trifle which, insignificant 
in itself, suggests the image of real life." 

Radicals like Mr. Galsworthy and Mr. Barker take 
special delight in closing their acts upon comparatively 
commonplace speeches or pantomime. Analysis in such 
cases, however, will generally show that there has merely 
been appended to the climax a little added dialogue, 
the effect of which, like the delayed final curtain of "The 
Thunderbolt," is intended to suggest this indefinite- 
ness of reality. Of course, this is not an actual gain in 
truth, but simply the substitution of one artificial device 
for another. Dramatic structure, when it exhibits itself 
over-boldly, is doubtless reprehensible; its labored con- 
cealment, on the other hand, may prove equally repellent. 
Clyde Fitch, always on the lookout for the startling, was 
among the first to drop his curtains at unexpected mo- 
ments. The greater the surprise, of course, the more 
effective the expedient. But, naturally, this device is not 
adapted to much repetition. 

"In a tragedy the grand climax is usually preceded or 
followed by what is called the 'tragic moment,' the event 
which makes a tragic outcome unavoidable and foredooms 
to failure every subsequent struggle of the hero against 
his fate. The speech of Mark Antony, the killing of Polo- 
nius, the escape of Fleance, are examples of the ' tragic 
moment/ and it will be seen how closely this is associated 



CLIMAX AND THE ENDING 109 

with what the Greeks named the 'turn/ — the beginning 
of the 'falling action.' " x Usually it is after the climax 
that we find the falling movement, the catastrophe, the 
solution, the denouement, the untying of the knot. 

Modern plays in four acts, with the climax at the end 
of the third, devote Act IV, or at least the latter portion 
of it, to bringing matters to a conclusion. A moment's 
thought will show that this decline after the high point is 
a necessary part of most dramatic actions and is therefore 
not to be confused with the bungling anti-climax, or flat- 
tening of interest, against which a warning has just been 
uttered. 

The Ending 

Doubtless the simplest way to put an end to a fight is 
for one of the antagonists, human or otherwise, to with- 
draw — as it were, % to "holler 'nufL" But it frequently 
happens that neither of the contestants is of the quitting 
kind, in which case one or the other must be definitely 
"knocked out," if there is to be any satisfactory termina- 
tion of hostilities. In the old Greek drama the deus ex 
machina would sometimes descend from Olympus at the 
last moment and straighten out an apparently hopeless 
situation by superhuman means. Later on, the play- 
wright himself all too frequently employed a supernatural 
power in making his characters belie their innate selves 
that the story might terminate, "happily" or otherwise. 
But eleventh-hour changes of heart on the part of hero, 
heroine, or antagonist are distinctly out of fashion on the 

1 A study of Prose Fiction, Bliss Perry. 



IIO THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

stage to-day. Just as there is an effort to avoid even the 
semblance of artificiality in the matter of climaxes, so 
there is an even stronger — and far more praiseworthy — 
determination to abolish the unmotived and illogical 
about-facing that has made possible so many last-act 
reconciliations, marriages, and general rightings of wrongs. 

The last act, though it follow the climax, should sustain 
the interest to the end. Generally speaking, it should be 
brief and compact. In tragedy there will, of course, be 
the death-scene, or at least its modern equivalent — 
separation, or other recognition of the futility of the 
struggle. In comedy there will be the reconciliation, the 
rehabilitation, the betrothal, or perhaps simply the quiet 
termination of a contest or an intrigue now definitely 
ended. In any event, there should be a disentangling of 
the complication, but the untying of the knot should be so 
managed that suspense is continued, based on doubt as to 
the outcome, or the manner of its accomplishment, and, if 
possible, re-enforced by skilfully manipulated surprise. 

As has lately been demonstrated in "Under Cover" and 
"On Trial," for instance, nothing gives a drama a more 
effective ending than an abrupt and resourceful, yet wholly 
probable, denouement held practically till the last cur- 
tain. 

In one farce that comes to mind, wherein two different 
persons have in turn pretended to be a certain noted 
foreigner, with seemingly insoluble resultant complica- 
tions, the unexpected arrival upon the scene at the last 
moment of the foreigner in person straightens matters out 
in a jiffy. The two impersonators are simultaneously 



CLIMAX AND THE ENDING III 

unmasked and rendered agreeable to compromise. This 
is, of course, a trite form of the expedient. 

Playwrights of to-day avoid antiquated solutions like 
the unexpected will that turns up at the last moment and 
leaves the estate to the hero, as in "The Lights o' London" 
and others of its ilk. Arbitrary conclusions are more 
tolerable in farce than elsewhere. We feel no resentment, 
for instance, when, in Mr. James Montgomery's "Ready 
Money," Stephen Baird's dubiously exploited mine 
ultimately turns out really rich in gold; but when in a 
play of serious comedy intent like Mr. Thompson Buchan- 
an's "The Bridal Path" the heroine, having unmercifully 
flouted and ignored her newly acquired husband, about- 
faces at the very first intimation that even this worm 
might turn, we sense the puppet-master pulling his 
strings. 

Sarcey 1 wrote in 1867: "Real life has no denouements. 
Nothing in it ends, because nothing in it begins. Every- 
thing continues. Every happening reaches back at one 
end into the series of facts which preceded it, and passes 
on at the other end to lose itself in the series of facts which 
follow. The two extremities fade into the shadows and 
escape us. In the theatre one must cut at some definite 
point this interrupted stream of life, stop it at some 
accident du rivage" 

Brunetiere, on the other hand, regarded such a theory as 
a jest and not a very pleasing one. As an excuse for 

1 Compare Studies in Stagecraft, Clayton Hamilton, pages 
164-165. And again, The Theory of the Theatre, Clayton Hamil- 
ton, page 169. 



112 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Moliere's illogical " happy endings," it did not satisfy the 
author of Les Epoques du Theatre. Mere concessions to 
popular demand, 1 which insists that comedies should end 
with marriages, were these terminations, asserts the second 
critic, adding, "If we are not incapable of comprehension, 
we shall have to postulate the contrary in order to have 
the true thought of the poet." 

As for the termination that is neither of comedy nor of 
tragedy, but the "deliberate blank," according to Pro- 
fessor A. W. Ward it is a "confession of incompetence." 
The exponents of naturalism will, of course, quarrel with 
this dictum. They will insist that as life has no " endings " 
— other than death, and not even that — there may be 
none in a drama which aims at the closest possible approxi- 
mation of life. They will continue the play for two hours 
and then chop it off in the midst of a speech, as Mr. 
Barker does with "The Madras House." Presumably a 
plotless play will no more require a conclusion than it will 
need a beginning. But it has not yet been generally agreed 
that an absolutely plotless play is a play at all, by the 
commonly accepted definitions of the term. 

At all events, the rule in our day is that the playwright 
should by all means seek an ending that is an ending and at 
the same time the logical and convincing outcome of the 
facts of character and action that have preceded it. 

Illustrating Climax and Ending 

Purists are fond of reiterating that the word "climax" 

1 Compare A Study of the Drama, Brander Matthews, pages 
195, 196, 197. 



CLIMAX AND THE ENDING 113 

means only the series of gradations by which a culmina- 
tion is reached, and not the culmination, or acme, or 
apex itself. Authoritative use and dictionary makers, 
however, fail to bear out the purists on this point. But 
since the top of a ladder is reached — as Dr. Esenwein 
suggests — only by means of the series of rungs leading up 
to it, these steps themselves are necessarily presupposed 
even when our reference is to the apex alone. A climax 
in drama is a high point of emotional interest that has 
been attained by climbing upward by degrees. 

For the sake of illustration let us refer to "The Witching 
Hour," which we have already discussed with regard to 
its plot complication. To begin with, the student will note 
how in Act I the atmosphere is established, and the 
characters are introduced. Properly enough, both ele- 
ments are inherently interesting. The gradual exposition 
is disguised, for the most part, in characterizing dialogue. 
The theme is first casually referred to and presently 
defined by Justice Prentice, whose visit also prepares us 
for the developments of Act II. 

When Clay questions Viola as to Hardmuth's pro- 
posal , we scent the battle. Soon thereafter the antagonists 
themselves clash before our eyes, and our emotional 
in jrest is fully aroused: we are taking sides, hoping and 
waiting. Then comes the abrupt, swift, upward step to 
the primary climax : Clay, taunted to the verge of madness, 
kills Denning — and we are left in suspense as to the con- 
sequences of his deed. 

After the curtain has risen for the second time, there is 
some necessary explanation of inter-act developments by 



114 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

means of the conversation of the two Supreme Court 
justices. Pleasing surprise, with increased interest, 
results from the coincidence that Clay's fate now rests 
largely in Prentice's hands. The student will note the 
deft "atmosphere" and theme-emphasis introduced by 
the Bret Harte reference, which is at the same time by 
way of preparation for what is to follow. A much greater 
surprise, connected with the more significant coincidence, 
further absorbs us when Helen produces Prentice's old 
letter to her mother, telling of his cat's-eye duel. We are 
held in suspense for a time until the resentment of the 
Justice at this attempt to influence him is overcome. 
Then expectation leaps forward, when he promises a new 
trial and his own testimony in Clay's behalf. The act 
ending is extremely effective, with its moving and pic- 
turesque resume of the theme. 

In the beginning of Act III the suspense felt by the 
characters is passed over the footlights to add to that of 
the audience. Immediately the hand-to-hand fighting is 
resumed before our eyes, the combatants now in a death 
grapple. The hero who has so completely won our sym- 
pathies we now see in imminent danger of his life. We 
watch him fight on unflinchingly, battering down his 
opponent. Moment by moment more and more swiftly 
and certainly the good thought is driving out the bad. 
Suddenly, in a shock of welcome surprise, Clay bursts 
upon our sight, a free man. Then the main antagonism 
is bodied forth in a tense moment of climacteric con- 
flict — and brute force is finally cowed by the power of 
mind. 



CLIMAX AND THE ENDING 115 

With the climax of the play at the end of the third act, 
the author must exert his skill to hold complete interest 
throughout the "falling movement," the denouement, the 
"untying," of Act IV. Even here some further inter-act 
exposition is necessary, but it is swiftly conveyed and is 
made to serve the play's thesis now so freely and fre- 
quently in evidence. Act III has left at least Hardmuth' s 
fate in some doubt, as it has left Clay still the victim of 
his own weakness and of a bitter hatred. Let the student 
observe how the playwright utilizes these few loose ends 
to create fresh suspense, first, when Brookfield forces 
Clay to look unflinchingly at the cat's-eye the influence of 
which had wrought so much evil; and especially — second 
— when Jack sends the boy to fetch his persecutor. What 
will Brookfield do with his conquered enemy? No danger 
of our not waiting to see! Meanwhile, by means of 
Ellinger, the author entertains us with some skilful char- 
acter humor which is not only amusing but also intensely 
illuminating. As Prentice has summed up the play's 
thesis in serious terms, so Lew Ellinger presents it from 
the angle of epigrammatic whimsy: "God A'mighty gives 
you a mind like that, and you won't go with me to Cin- 
cinnati!" 

Then Clay returns with the fugitive Hardmuth; and 
we have the swift, telling, theses-clinching termination, 
definite, logical, and satisfying. Brookfield has shared in 
the evil thought, if not in the actual deed, that has put 
Scovil out of the world. Relentlessly abiding by his con- 
viction as to telepathic responsibility, the ex-gambler 
determines to help Hardmuth flee the state — and the 



Il6 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

woman Jack loves, now also convinced, declares she will 
aid him in this act of generosity to the relentless prose- 
cutor of her son. 

The beginner will find it decidedly worth while to dissect 
out and study minutely the framework of many notable 
plays. He will readily see that methods of construction 
vary widely; that there is no rigid form of climax-building 
to be exactly followed in every instance; that plans differ 
according to the purpose involved, the period of the 
writing, the playwright's degree of orthodoxy, and many 
other considerations. Nevertheless, the student will 
observe, the trajectory or sky-rocket path is rarely 
neglected by any play that wins for itself a large measure 
of popular approval. And such a scheme of movement 
necessarily involves the onward, upward, culminating 
course of climax. 

Questions and Exercises 

i. Formulate a definition for Climax. 

2. Define Motivation. 

3. Pick out the grand climax (a) in any play of the 
Elizabethan period; (b) in any modern play. 

4. In a short sentence for each, trace the various minor 
climaxes, in any modern plays, by which the author 
step by step increases the tension of interest and expecta- 
tion. This is an important question because it discloses one 
of the dramatist's most useful devices in bringing a story 
gradually to its high point. 

5. Show, in any play, how a minor (lesser because only 



CLIMAX AND THE ENDING 117 

a contributory) climax is followed by a short period of 
easement. 

6. Can you point out in any play a place where the 
dramatist lost his grip on his audience by too great a 
reversal of interest after such a minor climax? 

7. Though climax and denouement are never identical, 
point to a story or a play in which the resolution follows 
the climax so quickly that they are almost simultaneous in 
time? 

8. What is the difference between a crisis and a climax? 

9. Cite a play in which the ending is artificial because 
the denouement has been forced — badly motivated. 

10. What is your opinion of "the happy ending? " 

11. In what sort of plays are we less insistent on a well 
motivated denouement? Give examples, if you can. 

12. Revise one of your old plots, in view of the principles 
of this chapter. In presenting it, show what changes you 
have made. 

13. Briefly summarize the first two acts of an original 
comedy, farce-comedy, or farce, and then describe fully 
the grand climax and denouement, without giving the dia- 
logue in full form. 



CHAPTER XI 



DEVICES AND CONVENTIONS 

The drama ought not to correspond in every respect with the 
scenes which we daily witness in real life. The mimic powers of 
the art are not without their bounds; and it is ever necessary 
that its deceptions should not be altogether concealed from our 
view. — Sismondi, The Literature of the South of Europe. 

The dramatic art is the ensemble of the conventions universal 
or local, eternal or temporary, by the aid of which, in representing 
human life on the stage, one gives to the public the illusion of 
truth. . . . 

I shall not cease to repeat it: the theatre — like the other arts, 
after all — is only a great and magnificent deception. It has not 
at all for its object actual truth, but verisimilitude. Now, veri- 
similitude exists much less in the reality of facts than in the 
impassioned imagination of the spectators before whose eyes the 
dramatic author exhibits these facts. — Francisque Sarcey, 
Quarante Ans de Thedtre. 

Before proceeding to a discussion of the characterization, 
it would seem advisable to consider certain devices and 
conventions by means of which plots are erected, sus- 
tained, or relieved. 

Time was when a sub-plot or secondary fable was a 
familiar element in play structure, a story within the main 
story, emphasizing the latter by similarity or by contrast, 
but not directly building it up in a vital way, and therefore 
not strictly part and parcel of the main action of the play. 
Thus the love affair of Lorenzo and Jessica mirrors that of 
Bassanio and Portia, and the tragic experiences of Laertes 



DEVICES AND CONVENTIONS 119 

parallel those of Hamlet, but are not really essential to 
either story. Nowadays, however, it is generally assumed 
that neither playing time on the stage nor unity of impres- 
sion allows for secondary development. Exceptions to 
this almost axiomatic principle are rare. 

The Element of Relief 

Perhaps the chief relic of the sub-plot may be found in 
the element of relief. As everybody knows, characters 
such as comic servants, quaint old people, and juvenile 
lovers, have long been employed to furnish a humorous or 
a sentimental contrast to the main action, particularly 
when it has been deeply serious. Neither hero nor villain, 
however, is at present considered above contributing to 
mirth, and the youthful amorists are now given some- 
thing more to do in the story than mere billing and 
cooing. 

After all, the best relief possible is that of contrast. The 
scenes of a drama ought to be as carefully varied as are the 
constituents of a concert programme, and such variety is 
to be obtained by changing the number of characters 
participating in the scenes, as well as by alternating the 
graver incidents with the gay. 

Humor 



Humor is displayed in drama by means of verbal 
witticisms, which retain their flavor even when detached 
from the text; of lines that are amusing because they 
illuminate amusing traits of the speaker's character; and 



120 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

of situations or contretemps depending on the development 
of the story. In other words, there is a type of humorous 
effect peculiar to each of the three elements — dialogue, 
character, and plot. 

Humor of dialogue is merely a facile means of provoking 
laughter, and is dependent solely on the author's ability 
to devise and to insert his jests or epigrams in such a 
manner as neither unduly to delay the action nor seriously 
to belie the characters that utter them. The plays of 
Oscar Wilde are even overloaded with dazzling collections 
of this superimposed ornamentation. We know, when we 
hear them uttered, that they are the achievements, not of 
the personages giving voice to them, but of the brilliant 
author only. Less clever writers run great risks in imi- 
tating the manner of "Lady Windermere's Fan" or of 
"Fanny's First Play." 

Above all things, certainly, the dialogue humor of a 
drama should be original. A few years ago a play was pro- 
duced in New York which boldly repeated many of the 
best epigrams of Wilde. Every really experienced thea- 
tre-goer promptly recognized them. And it is so with 
most of the "pickings from 'Puck' " with which some 
authors are prone to lard their stage works. In "Under 
Cover," for example, to quote a single instance, one notes 
the interpolation of that antique bit of dialogue wherein 
the "juvenile" with the "tango mustache" says, "Some- 
thing's been trembling on my lip for weeks;" and the 
ingenue protests, "Oh, please don't shave it off, Monty!" 
It must be confessed that though this good old jest has 
been circulating in the public prints since before the days 



DEVICES AND CONVENTIONS 121 

of Joe Miller, everybody seems wiKing to laugh at it just 
once more. 

Plot humor, and especially character humor, are much 
more valuable in the drama than is mere detached verbal 
cleverness. It would be easy to cite no end of examples of 
both, alone and in combination. Plot humor is, naturally, 
the principal ingredient of farce; character humor of 
comedy; though each is often found in melodrama, and 
even in tragedy. The absurdly simple-minded Sam Thorn- 
hill's remark in the last act of "A Pair of Silk Stockings," 
that he thought his wife knew he was "a subtle sort of 
chap," is a rich instance of character humor. And when 
the young Assyriologist in "The High Cost of Loving" 
greets a conscience-stricken pillar of society as "Father," 
we have an obvious illustration of humor of plot. 

Coincidence and Probability 

As has been seen, events may occur, on the stage as in 
life, either inevitably, as in the case of pure comedy and 
tragedy, or arbitrarily, as in the case of melodrama or 
farce. It is the mingling of these two kinds that makes for 
much of that confusion of the genres elsewhere considered. 
The arbitrary determination of plot, moreover, is illus- 
trated in the matter of the forced "happy ending," the 
sudden and incredible conversion of a character, the over- 
night reform or reconciliation. Of course, at any point in 
a drama the arbitrary may intervene at the sacrifice of 
inevitability. 

One prominent example of this intervention takes the 



122 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

form of the greatly over-worked coincidence. There are, 
doubtless, frequent strange accidents in real life which 
wholly upset all rational courses of events. On the stage, 
however, the workings of chance — at least in serious 
drama — are regarded with suspicion. Time, that arch 
satirist, as Mr. William Archer and others have reminded 
us, has his joke out with Tess of the D'Urbervilles because a 
letter slipped under a door happens to slip also under a car- 
pet. In the employment of this expedient in his novel 
Mr. Hardy is as usual doing the thing best fitted to his pur- 
pose. On the other hand, critics have often pointed out 
that arbitrarily controlled action on the part of a main 
character in a comedy or a tragedy, to bring about a 
desired plot development, necessarily renders the person- 
age unconvincing. And likewise, if the intervention of 
chance be utilized to produce a major movement in the 
plot, the audience will be apt to lose faith and interest in 
all that follows. 

This is, of course, merely going back to our fundamental 
principle of logic, here traveling under the name of proba- 
bility. In real life a long-lost daughter, reared among 
gypsies and ignorant of her parentage, might, indeed, by 
pure chance stroll one evening unawares into the home of 
her unsuspecting father; but nowadays, when such an 
event occurs upon the stage, we grow restive and sus- 
picious of the author's inventiveness or his good faith. 
Time was when important coincidence was accepted in the 
theatre as a matter of course, or even of preference. 
To-day, however, it has been for the most part consigned 
to that limbo of antiquated devices and conventions which, 



DEVICES AND CONVENTIONS 1 23 

for the present at least, has swallowed up the soliloquy, 
the "apart," and the "aside," along with eavesdropping 
behind portieres and letters fortuitously left lying about. 

One recalls how purely coincidental it is that Paula 
Tanqueray's former lover should become engaged to 
her step-daughter. In Mr. Augustus Thomas's play, 
"As a Man Thinks," it is pure coincidence that discovers 
to Vedah Seelig, in Act I, that her fiance De Lota has 
been in serious trouble: De Lota happens to have been 
involved with the very model Burrill employed and whose 
photograph the latter is exhibiting because he happened 
to have sold to the father of Vedah the figurine of 
which Mimi was the original. Moreover, this coinci- 
dence is doubled — in strangeness as well as in usefulness 
— when it is also made to serve as the means of apprising 
Elinor Clayton that her husband, who happens to have 
become involved with this self-same model, is justifying 
her fears as to his infidelity. Again, in Act II of this play, 
Clayton learns of the apparent infamy of his wife through 
the highly improbable coincidence which leads her father f 
on his way to Clayton's home, actually to see her entering 
with De Lota the apartment building in which he lodges. 
Perhaps it is the effectiveness of Scribe's "triangle of 
information," which the author employs in each instance, 
that reconciles us — if we are reconciled — to this bold use 
of the arbitrary. 

This explanation, however, certainly does not apply in 
the case of the telephone incident in Act III. For the 
purposes of the plot it has become necessary for the 
Seeligs to learn of De Lota's evil record. The only person 



124 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

who could inform them, however, is Julian Burrill; but, as 
an honorable rival of De Lota for Vedah Seelig's hand, 
Burrill would be going contrary to his character if he were 
to turn informer. So the author has De Lota, who is alone 
with Burrill, start to answer a telephone call and then, 
when the receiver is off the hook, admit his guilt in full. 
It happens that the confession is heard not only by Dr. 
Seelig, answering the call on a branch instrument, but also 
by Frank Clayton, who is the husband of the woman with 
whom De Lota is involved, and who happens to be at the 
other end of the line. Thus a third astonishing coincidence 
is utilized, and the common sense of De Lota is belied by 
his stupidity in making damaging admissions into the con- 
nected transmitter of a telephone. 

In Mr. Haddon Chambers's "Passers-by," the female 
waif who is called in from the London night turns out to 
be the mother of the hero's child. In Mr. Augustus 
Thomas's play, "The Model," the girl the Frenchman 
urges the painter to make his mistress, it develops, is the 
Frenchman's own daughter. In Messrs. John Stapleton 
and P. G. Wodehouse's farce, "A Gentleman of Leisure," 
the hero on a bet goes with a burglar to rob a house and 
enters the home of the very girl he has just been flirting 
with from the second cabin of the Lusitania. In Mr. W. 
C. DeMille's melodrama, "The Woman," a political boss 
and his son-in-law set out to ruin a woman unknown, who 
proves to be the former's daughter and the latter's wife. 
Each of these plays has won its measure of success, I am 
sure, not because, but rather in spite of this sort of expe- 
dient. 



DEVICES AND CONVENTIONS 1 25 

One hastens to admit that it is evident from the box- 
office records that this frequent use of coincidence — let 
the critics rail as they will — is condoned. In that exceed- 
ingly popular play, "The Man from Home," for example, 
the personage whom the unsuspecting hero makes friends 
with and thereafter addresses as "Doc," turns out to 
be the very Russian grand duke whose intervention can 
save the Kokomo lawyer's protege. When presently, 
moreover, this fugitive proves to be the former husband of 
the woman who is conspiring to ensnare the hero's ward, 
the agglomeration of the fortuitous becomes fairly 
bewildering. When Victor Hugo abuses the arbitrary, as 
in "Ruy Bias," Sarcey explains that it is no great matter, 
since over "this strange fairy tale" is flung "the purple of 
his poetry." 1 The French critic finds excuse in the fact 
that "Ruy Bias" is "precisely a marvel of style and of 
versification . . . Et quel vers! comme il est toujours 
plein et sonoreV It would be interesting to consider the 
possible excuses that might be offered in the case of "The 
Man from Home." 

In the writing of serious plays, by all means the beginner 
should avoid the fortuitous coincidence that makes 
dramatic problem-solving over-easy. 

Generally speaking, the expedient may be safely em- 
ployed in the serious modern realistic drama only — to adapt 
Sarcey's familiar and often quoted principle — when it 
brings about comparatively unimportant changes. Mon- 
sieur Tristan Bernard, speaking of his play "Le Danseur 
inconnu" observes that "the events in it are ordered some- 

1 Compare A Study of the Drama, Brander Matthews, page 207. 



126 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

times through the will of the personages, as in comedie de 
caractere, sometimes by pure chance, as in comedie 
romanesque. And is it not thus, after all," he queries, 
"that it happens in life, wherein we labor to construct our 
destiny with our own energies and the collaboration, 
benevolent or malign, of fate?" Because it is thus in 
life, however, by no means makes it necessarily correct in 
art. 

Certainly, in the more artificial forms — the variants of 
farce and melodrama — coincidence may be used much 
more freely. Time was — and that not so very long ago — 
when the romantic costume melodrama, with all its 
extravagances of arbitrary plotting, was the most popular 
form of stage amusement. To-day, however, when the 
fashion calls for an approximation of life, unexaggerated, 
unemphasized, even unselected, the coincidental is largely 
under the ban. First-nighters show their sophistication 
by laughing at it, in their sleeves if not openly, as they 
have been known to laugh at the use of the "apart," the 
"aside," and the soliloquy. 

Weak Illusions 

What future decades will find amusing in the other con- 
ventions of our present-day stage, it is, of course, impossi- 
ble to predict. Undoubtedly, however, we are accept- 
ing quite soberly what will eventually serve as food for 
ridicule. We still allow ourselves to be startled, thrilled, 
emotionally played upon by all manner of childlike 
devices, some — but not all — depending upon an elusive 



DEVICES AND CONVENTIONS 1 27 

novelty for their effect. Sophisticated audiences of to-day 
that scorn the soliloquy, for instance, yet find little diffi- 
culty in accepting such an expedient as that employed 
in Mr. Edgar Wallace's "Switchboard," wherein an 
exchange girl hears, presumably over the telephone, the 
remarks of numerous actors concealed behind a thin cur- 
tain. What seems most to matter is whether the partic- 
ular device happens to be in or out of fashion. 

I know of few more interesting subjects connected with 
the stage than that of the conventions on which the illu- 
sion of the theatre is based — a subject, by the way, which 
Sarcey has treated at length in his "Quarante Ans de 
Theatre." How these conventions vary in different lands 
and periods, we need not here discuss. A single instance, 
however, may be cited. In Monsieur Rostand's miracle 
play, "La Samaritaine" there is a scene in which various 
disciples hold a discussion intended to be delivered in 
a "stage whisper." When the Master, who is across 
the stage, breaks into the conversation, they are amazed 
at His presumably miraculous hearing. As the specta- 
tors have heard very plainly all that has been said, how- 
ever, they do not share in the disciples' astonishment. 
Jnstead, at least here in America, a discordant titter 
passes over the audience, when Peter exclaims somewhat 
grotesquely, "He hears everything!" 

Trite Expedients 

There is a manifest distinction between stage conven- 
tions and stage conventionalities. The former are largely 



128 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

necessitated by the physical conditions of theatrical 
representation. The latter, however, are chiefly the result 
of a lazy uninventiveness on the part of playwrights who 
prefer following beaten paths to striking out into newer 
territory. By dint of much repetition a vast number of 
stage expedients have become thoroughly hackneyed and, 
for the time being at least, should be regarded as taboo by 
amateur dramatists. Persecuted foundlings who turn out 
to be noblemen's heirs, hidden wills, dropped or miscarried 
letters, and innocent ladies caught in villains' apartments, 
are no longer so useful for dramatic purposes as they were 
when they were new — if, indeed, they ever were new. 
Still, they are constantly turning up, even in our modern 
realistic drama. The marked libretto that Elinor Clayton 
drops in the second act of "As a Man Thinks" is prob- 
ably only a variant of the lost handkerchief or fan of 
ancient vintage. In "The Thunderbolt" Sir Arthur 
Pinero boldly — and superbly — -deals with the stolen will 
and the cross-examined woman. 

Perhaps, after all, it is impossible to go very far in drama 
without being obliged to make use of one or more antiques. 
In that event, it were doubtless better to select such as 
have not been especially overworked in recent days. 
When, for example, "The Lady from Oklahoma" was 
produced, it was found to deal with two conventionalities 
that had already been exploited during the season: the 
neglected wife who wins back her successful husband's 
interest, as in "The Governor's Lady;" and the faded 
woman who regains her bloom artificially, as in "Years of 
Discretion." The fact that "The Lady from Oklahoma" 



DEVICES AND CONVENTIONS I2Q 

had been written before either of the other pieces did not 
save it from failure. That, however, was the author's 
misfortune, not his fault. 

The following satirical recipes for conventional plays, 
taken from the New York Dramatic Mirror, may well 
serve to warn the beginner with regard to several dramatic 
schemes he should sedulously avoid: 

Political Play — A boss, thick-necked and large of 
stature, who talks in a bullying tone and smokes fat cigars 
at an angle of forty-five degrees, and who in the end is 
completely outwitted by a resourceful little girl weighing 
about one hundred and ten pounds. 

Comedy of Manners — New twist* given to Oscar 
Wilde's epigrams. At least two butlers. In tea scenes 
characters must wear summery clothes and discuss with 
just a trace of malice the approaching nuptials of Lady 
Vere de Vera Rich. In last act dress clothes are essential. 

American Problem Play — Woman must visit man's 
apartment at night unescorted. Extravagance of the wife 
discovered at 10:15, after which there must follow a 
stormy repetition of "Why did you do it?" until the 
climax is reached by the demolition of the chamber door. 

American Melodrama — One Colt automatic. One 
stupid and heartless detective. One or more slangy 
women characters, who furnish comedy relief. Theme to 
concern the chief form of whatever vice or corruption is 
occupying the immediate attention of the public. 

Rural Comedy of Present Time — A broken-down 
emporium run by a lazy, shiftless individual in the first 



130 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

act. A well-kept emporium run by an energetic, ambitious 
individual in the last act. Reason? A good-looking vixen 
who knows the art of flattery. 

Rural Comedy of Past Time — City chap with riding 
breeches. One mortgage on the farm. A ruined daughter 
and an erring son. One saw-mill. 

If it is hard to avoid the trite in the construction of plots, 
it is possible to make up for such defects by means of 
novelty — more especially of truth — of characterization. 
Plots are necessarily artificial, but human nature is always 
new and always a fact. Seeking reality wherever he can 
find it, the latter-day playwright can follow no better 
course than that outlined by Stevenson in one of his 
essays. "Let him," writes this high authority, "choose a 
motive, whether of character or of passion; carefully con- 
struct his plot so that every incident is an illustration of 
the motive, and every property employed shall bear to it 
a near relation of congruity or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, 
unless, as sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a 
reversion or complement of the main intrigue; . . . and 
allow no . . . character in the course of the dialogue to 
utter one sentence that is not part and parcel of the busi- 
ness of the story." And, as the root of the whole matter, 
continues R. L. S., whose words concern the novel but 
apply equally to the play, it is to be borne in mind that the 
work "is not a transcript of life, to be judged by its 
exactitude, but a simplification of some side or point of 
life, to stand or fall by its significant simplicity." 

"The germ of a story with him," asserts Henry James 



DEVICES AND CONVENTIONS 131 

in writing of Turgenieff," was never an affair of plot — that 
was the last thing he thought of: it was the representation 
of certain persons." The critic goes on to explain, how- 
ever, that Turgenieff realized his own defect — want of 
"architecture," or composition. The playwright is rather 
more dependent upon this element of "architecture" than 
is the novelist; but he is none the less obligated — if he 
takes his art at all seriously — to the utmost veracity in 
"the representation of certain persons." 

It is obvious that the skilful dramatist will make full use 
of the many legitimate devices of his craft. He will, for 
instance, provide the element of relief and variety through 
humor and especially through contrast. He will bear in 
mind that humor of plot or of character is usually the 
most telling and certainly the most dramatic. He will 
learn to look askance on the overworked coincidence, 
which so often mars the logic of characterization, and 
which is generally regarded as "old-fashioned." In fact, 
he will — so long as our modern realistic attitude prevails — 
ignore illusion-shattering expedients of every sort and 
devote himself to those conventions which are the founda- 
tion of verisimilitude. Above all things, the painstaking 
playwright will scrupulously avoid hackneyed themes, 
situations, and types, and depend for his material upon 
first-hand observation of human nature. 



Questions and Exercises 

1. From any plays, give examples of the distinctions 
between humor of dialogue, of plot, and of character. 



132 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

2. Do the same by giving original examples. Repeat 
this exercise at your own option, or that of the instructor. 

3. Substitute a more natural and convincing device for 
any one of the weak coincidences cited in this chapter. 

4. Cite an instance you have observed or read in a play 
in which mere coincidence is made more plausible by 
fresh and clever handling. 

Note: The student of drama can undertake no more 
helpful exercise than the practice of inventing fresh devices 
to take the place of lame coincidences in plays seen, read, 
and offered in the class-room. This exercise should be 
continued until real invention is shown. 

5. Devise a plan to do away with the necessity for the 
use of (a) the "aside," (b) the "apart," (c) the "soliloquy," 
in some definite case you may either invent or cite from 
a play. 



CHAPTER XII 



THE CHARACTERS 

There is a gallery of them, and of all that gallery I may say 
that I know the tone of the voice, and the color of the hair, every 
flame of the eye, and the very clothes they wear. Of each man 
I could assert whether he would have said these words or the 
other words; of every woman, whether she would then have 
smiled or so have frowned. When I shall feel that this intimacy 
ceases, then I shall know that the old horse should be turned 
out to grass. — Anthony Trollope, Autobiography. 

The characters must be real, and such as might be met with in 
actual life, or, at least, the natural developments of such people 
as any of us might meet; their actions must be natural and con- 
sistent; the conditions of place, of manners, and of thought must 
be drawn from personal observation. To take an extreme case: 
a young lady brought up in a quiet country village should avoid 
descriptions of garrison life; a writer whose friends and personal 
experiences belong to what we call the lower middle class should 
carefully avoid introducing his characters into Society.— 1 Sir 
Walter Besant, The Art of Fiction. 

Since characters in plays are supposed to be drawn from 
real life, the playwright's success will obviously depend, 
first, on his powers of observation; and, second, on his 
ability to portray what he observes. Neither of these 
qualifications can be acquired through the study of rules. 
Hundreds of thousands of American collegians have had 
some four years of experience with the amusing types that 
animate "The College Widow," but only Mr. George Ade 
has had the gifts and the enterprise to reproduce them for 



134 THE TECHNIQUE OE PLAY WRITING 

the stage. "Why couldn't I have done that?" is the 
question the amateur writer invariably asks himself when 
he has come in contact with so simple, yet so veracious 
and just a piece of work as the character drawing in "The 
County Chairman" or in "The Pigeon" or in "Outcast." 
Oftenest the reason lies in an inherent lack of aptitude. 
At any rate, without the ability to observe and the skill to 
reproduce, no writer can hope to learn the processes of 
character portrayal. One can, however, profit by certain 
general suggestions. 

Aristotle called action the essential in drama; but, just 
as in literature, form, which is essential, is less important 
than content, so it is with story in the drama, as com- 
pared with the characterization. This is, of course, truer 
in the case of comedy and tragedy — character plays — than 
in that of melodrama and farce — story plays; though it is 
in any event next to impossible to insist upon either 
element alone, simply because character is necessarily 
portrayed in action, and action is ever resultant upon 
character. 

Planning the List of Characters 

In devising a drama the author will probably determine 
early whether he will use few or many characters, and 
whether they are to be portrayed in detail or merely 
sketched. Character plays require more, story plays 
fewer elaborately drawn figures. A farce or a melodrama 
can get along very nicely with a group of easily recognized 
types. A comedy or a tragedy will want at least one or 
more highly individualized personages to give it a reason 



THE CHARACTERS 135 

for being. And farce and melodrama will, in all likelihood, 
be lifted into the realm of comedy and tragedy by the 
development of the types into individuals, of outlines into 
portraits. Of this distinction, more presently. 

It has often been pointed out that the drama relies for 
permanency upon its characterizations. There are, of 
course, some plays of plot enacted by mere puppets, 
which flourish for a season — or oftener less. There are 
other plays of slight story-interest which endure because 
of the real men and women that animate them. Literary 
qualities aside, "A New Way to Pay Old Debts" is impor- 
tant chiefly as the setting for Sir Giles Overreach. So 
"Caste" emerges from the mass of Victorian stage con- 
ventionality because of the Eccles family and their 
friends. What were "Liberty Hall" without the lovable 
old bookseller? Or "The Drone" without that prepos- 
terous fraud, Daniel Murray? "Hindle Wakes" is valu- 
able for its headstrong Lancashire folk. "Pomander 
Walk" we love for its crusty admiral, its pompous butler, 
its figures out of Elia. "Chains" is fundamentally a 
human document. Truly we cherish the classics much 
more for their soul-portraits than for their antique fables. 

The Place of Realism in Characterization 

Latter-day realism and naturalism, indeed, have tended 
toward over-emphasis upon the element of characteriza- 
tion. Disdaining all the artifices of the theatre, the 
realistic playwright has sought a photographic reproduc- 
tion of nature. Artistic selection, it has been argued, has 



136 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

become excessively facile and therefore self-conscious: 
we must "return to nature" and throw technique to the 
dogs. As we have seen, to such reformers whatever 
savors of the theatre, even by remote suggestion, is to be 
avoided as the pestilence. There must be no more climax 
and solution; no more situation and plot; no hero or 
heroine even; no beginning and no end. The recipe is: 
Take two hours out of real life and put them — absolutely 
without change — upon the stage. Of course, a million 
chances to one there will be no plot. By the same token 
there will be an immense surplus of the insignificant in 
thought, word, and deed. This will be so, even though a 
crucial two hours be chosen. And it is doubtful whether 
extreme naturalism would really permit such a choice. 
Plot being eliminated, at any rate characterization will 
remain. Obviously it too will be without selection, if it is 
orthodox. And it is equally obvious that plays so written 
will hardly succeed in getting anywhere. 

Unquestionably there has been a great need for this sort 
of reaction. Unquestionably, too, it provides its own 
automatic check. The excesses of romanticism and the 
artificial have been as notorious as the excesses of classicism 
and the artificial. The "return to nature" is the only 
remedy in either case. And after we have had a surfeit of 
nature, there will always be the return to art. After all, 
humanity loves to improve on the natural; to set the 
imagination to work; to combine, select, proportion; to 
build the ideal; to rise. 

The recent Irish drama has sometimes been cited as 
exemplary of extreme modern realism. It is true that 



THE CHARACTERS 137 

character, rather than plot, is stressed in the majority of 
the Irish plays, for they are, most of them, either comedy 
or tragedy. "Lady Gregory," writes one critic, 1 "does 
not work the situation up to any emphatic climax; but, 
having opened a momentary little vista upon life, she 
smilingly remarks 'That's all' and rings the curtain 
down." This would seem to be fitting facts rather hastily 
to a theory. Surely there is true farce climax in " Hyacinth 
Halvy," true tragic climax in "The Gaol Gate," true 
melodramatic climax in "The Rising of the Moon," true 
dramatic structure and climax in an entire group of her 
little comedies. Moreover, there is in practically all the 
Irish plays not only admirable characterization, but well- 
defined plot, having in all cases a beginning, a middle, and 
an end. The fact is that the Irish dramatists — Synge and 
Yeats and Ervine and Murray and Lady Gregory and all 
the rest — instead of discarding dramatic technique, have 
refreshed and revivified it with their simple artistry in the 
manipulation of the actual. Doubtless their success is 
chiefly founded on veracious characterization; and this, 
in turn, is satisfying because it is sure. 

The Sources of Character Material 

Where does the dramatist acquire the material he must 
work over into the characterization of his plays? From 
observation, primarily, as has been said; though also, in 
part, from reading, from hearsay, and from a combination 
of these sources. Moving through life, he notes the 

1 Studies in Stagecraft, Clayton Hamilton, page 133. 



138 THE TECHNIQUE OE PLAY WRITING 

peculiarities, the eccentricities, the special qualities that 
go with this, that, or the other mental and physical 
make-up. He ponders and selects and rearranges. 
Sometimes he reproduces on the stage a figure accurately 
drawn from a single living model. More often he con- 
structs harmonious combinations built of the shreds and 
patches of long experience. Strangely enough, characters 
composed after this latter plan are often the best: there 
are few figures in real life that can be transplanted bodily 
to the stage and yet remain effective. Selection and com- 
bination judiciously performed usually produce the finest 
results. There is no rule for this labor. One man will 
work marvels with materials that others can only botch 
into chaos. Books and teachers can say little, other than 
to warn against excess and to advise reliance upon personal 
knowledge. 

The following humorous account of first-hand character 
observation is credited by the New York Evening Sun to 
Mr. Earl Derr Biggers. It should be most suggestive to 
the beginner at play or other fiction writing. 

"Scarcely a single character that appears in 'Inside 
the Lines,' my war play," said Mr. Biggers, "is a native 
of the Rock of Gibraltar, where the scene is laid. They 
all owe allegiance to countries far away, and often by 
wistful little speeches they show that they are thinking 
of 'the old home town.' 

" Of all these homesick people the one to whom my own 
sympathies go out most generously is Sherman from 
Kewanee. I am sure that his type — the rich old man 
dragged through Europe by his family — has long been a 



THE CHARACTERS 139 

favorite with cartoonists and humorists; but it was not 
from this source I took him. I have met him often in real 
life. And I have never known him but to love him. He 
is so wonderfully human. 

"The first time I met a Sherman in real life was when 
I was a boy in a little town in the middle West. ... I 
guess he was about the first man from our town to go 
abroad. He was president of the First National Bank, 
had all the honors that go with it, and was a happy man 
until his wife got the European fever. 

"They went, of course. A. D. said a long farewell to 
all the boys along Main Street, got on a train at the Erie 
station, and disappeared for a season. The only word 
that came from him during his trip was received by a man 
who had a nephew in the diplomatic service somewhere 
on the other side. The boy wrote that A. D. was glooming 
his way through Europe and bemoaning the fact that he 
wasn't able to meet up with a piece of squash pie. 

"A. D. got back at last, and the only information any- 
body was able to get out of him about the 'old country' 
was the statement that ' there's an awful lot of room going 
to waste in them old castles over there.' He lived ten 
years longer and referred frequently to the scandalous 
number of empty rooms ' all fixed up and nobody livin' in 
'em.' The boys at the bank said they would often come 
upon him, sitting sad and disconsolate, brooding over the 
wasted castle room of Europe. I imagine at such times 
he was fixing up the Grand Trianon or Sans Souci as a 
first-class boarding and rooming house. 

"The last Sherman I met," continued Mr. Biggers, 



140 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

"was a fine, sweet old character who crossed with us to 
Naples last spring. Like A. D., he had Europe coming to 
him, and he was the kind that makes the best of things. 
Every morning his daughter gave him a guide book with 
instructions to bone up on Rubens and the rest, but safe 
inside the smoking room he put it away and told us about 
the boys back in Ada, Ohio, where he came from, and how 
glad he'd be to get back. 

"I used to come upon him late at night, smoking a 
cigar quietly in a corner and looking out over the water 
in the wake of the ship — out toward Ada. Then he'd tell 
me about his eldest son, who was a lawyer and 'doing 
fine,' and of his house, and his garden, and the neighbors, 
and the spring election, and the time Garfield spoke 
in Ada. 

"He and I stood together on the deck the afternoon we 
came into the Bay of Naples, and saw the villas of the 
town lying white and wonderful at the foot of the famous 
mountains. Below us the steerage, mostly Italian, was 
like a bleachers crowd at a ball game with the home team 
winning — frantic with joy, climbing high in the rigging 
to get the first glimpse, cheering, mad. 

"The Italian doctor, a silent, fat little man, came 
running up to us, his face flushed, his eyes shining. 

" 'See, gentlemen,' he cried, 'that little patch of the 
white at the foot of old Vesuve. That is my town — my 
home — I go there to-night. Not for a year have I seen 
it — my own town so beautiful.' 

"The old boy from Ada straightened up and showed 
more interest than ever before. 



THE CHARACTERS 141 

" 'By golly,' he said, as the doctor left us, 'it's hard to 
realize — it all looks so foreign — I suppose he does live 
there. That makes the whole landscape real for me. I 
can just see him jumping off the train — running up Main 
Street — the town traveller, home again. I suppose 
to-night he'll be down at the cigar store telling the boys 
what he's seen on his travels.' 

"I saw my friend from Ada a moment that evening 
after the ship had docked. It was Saturday night in 
Naples; the stars had begun to twinkle up above the 
unlovely old warehouses along the waterfront; alongside 
our ship amateur Carusos in leaky boats were warbling 
'0 sole mia? to the twang of hoarse guitars. We were 
watching our baggage as it was trundled down a precipitous 
gangplank and through a hooting mob to the customs. 
The man from Ada was nervous. 

" 'They didn't give us any checks for the trunks,' he 
complained. 'I hate to let things go without checks. 
How am I going to get them back from that mob of dagos 
that don't speak a human tongue? I tell you we do things 
better out in Ada.' 

"Somebody gave a shove, and we all went hastily down 
that gangplank into Italy. 

"Four months passed, and I saw my friend from Ada 
again — in London it was, on the Strand. He was smiling, 
happy. 

" 'Passage booked — sail to-morrow,' he said. 'Going 
back to Ada. I figure I'll get there two weeks from 
Thursday— band concert night. I can sit on my porch 
and hear 'em play "The Star Spangled Banner." Say, 



142 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

those boys in Naples sure was out for the tips, wasn't 
they?' 

" 'What did you like best in Naples?' I asked. 

" 'The braying of the donkeys under our windows,' 
said the original of Sherman from Kewanee. 'Do you 
know, it sounded for all the world like the blowing of the 
factory whistles at noon in Ada?' " 

The history of the stage is full of examples of failure due 
largely to the attempt to picture phases of life with which 
the author was himself unfamiliar. Mr. Jerome K. 
Jerome has given us some unforgettable portraits drawn 
from London boarding-house life. When he has tried to 
depict the less familiar environment of the New York 
drawing-room, in "Esther Castways," however, he has 
failed to convince even London critics of the truthfulness 
of his work. Mr. Stanley Houghton, likewise, knew his 
Lancashire from A to Z; but his presentation of the 
cabinet ministers in "Trust the People" is far from real. 
Indeed, the last act of this play, which returns to his own 
peculiar locale, seems strikingly true in contrast with 
what has gone before. Perhaps the chief secret of the 
success of the Irish playwrights has lain in the fidelity 
with which they have clung to familiar settings and people 
in all their work. They have made their observations of 
humanity always at first hand; and, in consequence, 
mere "stock" roles or types have not sufficed for the 
animation of their stage. 

"What I insist upon," wrote Francisque Sarcey, in a 
feuilleton dealing with "Les Idees de Mme. Aubray" "is 
that the personage be consistent to the end with the char- 



THE CHARACTERS I43 

acter the author has given him, that he have a particular 
physiognomy, that he be living. ... I reproach the fig- 
ures in "La Femme de Claude," not with being symbolical, 
but with being not alive. Never, no, never will an abstrac- 
tion, or, if you prefer, an entity, interest me at the theatre, 
for the simple reason that I do not go there to see entities 
which symbolize ideas, but rather beings of flesh and 
blood, who suffer and weep as I do, in whom I find the 
echo of my own joys and sorrows — in a word, beings 
that live." 

The playwright's source of material is life. From what 
he sees of his fellow beings in all manner of circumstances, 
he selects those traits of character which to him seem sig- 
nificant and adapted to his purpose. By a process of com- 
bination and condensation he achieves his figures, letting 
them develop always in strict accord with logic. If he 
hopes to make them in any sense credible and real, he 
will draw them solely from his own personal experience. 
And, above all things, if he have the gift to do it, from 
curtain to curtain throughout his drama he will make 
them live. 

Note: The Questions and Exercises appended to the 
next chapter cover also the contents of this one. 



CHAPTER XIII 



DRAMATIS PERSONS AND LIFE 

Addison had sketched the Tory fox-hunter, clothing him in 
the characteristics of the class, "that he might give his readers 
an image of these rural statesmen." Squire Western has all the 
distinguishing marks of Addison's type, and beyond this, he is 
individualized. — Wilbur L. Cross, The Development of the 
English Novel. 

Verisimilitude, a quality much insisted on at this time [the 
eighteenth century], and in origin a restricted interpretation of 
Aristotle's preference for the probable, was exalted into a 
tyrannical principle which again excluded the individual, in its 
fear of the abnormal or self-contradictory, and reduced the 
delineation of character to a simplicity which belied human 
nature. A king must be kingly, and nothing else; an official 
must be officious, and nothing else; a maid must be modest, 
and nothing else; and so through the whole range of humanity; 
until in the perfection of decorum and verisimilitude, all interest 
evaporated, and a dead monotony reigned. — William Allan 
Neilson, Essentials of Poetry. 



Individual and Type 

In all fiction, of course, the individual is very much more 
delimited and defined than the type, which stands for a 
whole species in the genus homo. The swashbuckler, the 
hypocrite, the villain are types; Falstaff, Tartuffe, Iago 
are individuals. "Why is it," inquires Professor Bliss 
Perry, 1 "that the artist allows himself to substitute 

1 A Study of Prose Fiction. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS AND LIFE 145 

typical for individual traits and hence to lose the power 
of imparting a sense of actuality to his fictitious per- 
sonages? It is often true, no doubt, that the author fails 
to see clearly what he wants to express. He falls into 
abstract, typical delineation through mere irresolution or 
inattention, or it may be the over-fondness for what he 
may like to call the ' ideal,' that is, for the abstract rather 
than for the concrete. . . . Then, too, the prevalence of 
a fashionable artistic type is often found to overpower 
the artist's originality. ... In the third place, although 
the fiction-writer may see the individual with perfect 
distinctness, either as actually present before him or in 
imaginative vision, he may nevertheless not be able to 
express what he sees. He draws the general characteris- 
tics of the type rather than the individual characteristics 
of the person, because his vocabulary is not sufficiently 
delicate and precise for the task of portrayal . . . The 
defect is chiefly to be attributed to the lack of training in 
flexible and precise expression. . . . We have had cer- 
tain types drawn over and over again with wearisome 
reiteration, but we have had few fictitious personages 
who have given us the impression of actuality. It must 
be remembered after all that the type is, in the last 
analysis, only a subjective abstraction. ... If the per- 
sonage be so drawn as to convey a vivid sense of reality, 
the individual characteristics will be firmly outlined; and 
if he gives ... an impression of moral unity, there is 
little doubt that he will in the true sense contain the type. 
For the type, so far as it is of any artistic value, is implicit 
in the individual." 



146 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

All this was said primarily of the novel, but it is equally- 
applicable to the drama. In the theatre, for a long time 
now, characters have been grouped in certain familiar 
categories: the "leads" or "straight" parts — heroes and 
heroines; the "eccentrics" or "character" parts — odd 
and whimsical persons; the "heavies" — villains and 
adventuresses; the "old men" and "old women" and 
the "juveniles;" the "ingenues" and "soubrettes;" the 
"walking gentlemen and ladies;" the "utility men and 
women;" and the "supers," or supernumeraries. Obvi- 
ously such a cut-and-dried classification emphasizes the 
preponderance of types over individuals on the stage. 

The present-day tendency is to individualize, to give 
to every figure, whether heroic or otherwise, its peculiar 
characteristics, and especially to reproduce actuality in 
the matter of blending the good and the bad, the attractive 
and the repellent, in men and women, old and young. 
There is no reason, for example, why the "character old 
man" should not also be the hero, as in "Grumpy," or 
even both hero and villain, as in "Rutherford and Son." 

The old stereotyped set of characters in the old stereo- 
typed story is, in fact, no longer sufficient on our serious 
stage. These things were of the theatre merely — senti- 
mental claptrap born of tradition rather than of truth. 
That they have been largely displaced by more worthy 
matter is manifestly one of the effects of modern realism. 
To-day the first step toward success in the drama is the 
careful choice and the accurate portrayal of real human 
individuals. Therein only, indeed, can reside the supremely 
desired trait of freshness and novelty. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS AND LIFE 1 47 

Direct and Indirect Characterization 

Scores of critics have reassured us as to the fact that 
the playwright is naturally limited, in his depiction of 
humanity, to the self-revelatory manners, words, and 
deeds of his characters, together with their reactions upon 
their fellows and their environment. In other words, the 
portrayal of character upon the stage may be either 
direct or indirect. 

Always the first thing to be remembered is the truism 
that, on the stage as in real life, actions speak infinitely 
louder and more distinctly than words. We may take 
into account, in making up our final estimate of a man, 
what he tells us about himself and what his friends and 
enemies tell us about him; but we will be influenced in 
our judgment — if we are ordinarily wise, at least — far 
more by what we see him do. His carriage, his manner, 
his personal habits, and his conduct in the commonplace 
as well as in the crucial moments of life — observation of 
these things will inevitably guide us to our eventual 
verdict upon the individual. Of course, it will be well if 
his deeds and his words harmonize — unless he be meant 
for a hypocrite or a villain. Certainly it will be indis- 
pensable that he succeed in passing, if not for what he 
himself claims to be, at least for what his creator obviously 
intends him. 

Directly, stage personages display themselves through 
action, speech, mannerisms, class and professional traits — 
through conduct in incidents which reveal character, and 
in situations which determine it. Indirectly, they are 
shown by means of their effect upon others. 



I48 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

The character of Weinhold, the tutor in Hauptmann's 
"The Weavers," briefly sketched as it is, reveals itself 
both directly and indirectly with striking clearness. The 
author does not even indulge in a long stage direction 
concerning him, but merely informs us that he is "a 
theological graduate, nineteen, pale, thin, tall, with lanky 
fair hair; restless and nervous in his movements." In his 
first remark Weinhold ventures to disagree with the smug 
and sententious pastor Kittelhaus, who has just opened 
the fourth act by observing with finality: 

"You are young, Mr. Weinhold, which explains every- 
thing. At your age we old fellows held — well, I won't say 
the same opinions — but certainly opinions of the same 
tendency. And there's something fine about youth — 
youth with its grand ideals. But, unfortunately, Mr. 
Weinhold, they don't last; they are as fleeting as April 
sunshine. Wait till you are my age. When a man has 
said his say from the pulpit for fifty years — fifty-two 
times every year, not including saints' days — he has 
inevitably calmed down. Think of me, Mr. Weinhold, 
when you come to that pass." 

"With all due respect, Mr. Kittelhaus," hesitantly 
replies the tutor, "I can't think — people have such dif- 
ferent natures." 

"My dear Mr. Weinhold," persists the pastor reproach- 
fully, "however restless-minded and unsettled a man may 
be — and you are a case in point — however violently and 
wantonly he may attack the existing order of things, he 
calms down in the end." 

A few minutes later, when the rebellious weavers are 



DRAMATIS PERSONS AND LIFE 149 

heard singing in the street outside, Kittelhaus, approach- 
ing the window, says, "See, see, Mr. Weinhold! These 
are not only young people. There are numbers of steady- 
going old weavers among them, men whom I have known 
for years and looked upon as most deserving and God- 
fearing. There they are, taking part in this unheard-of 
mischief, trampling God's law under foot. Do you mean 
to tell me that you still defend these people? " 

"Certainly not," rejoins Weinhold. "That is, sir — 
cum grano salis. For, after all, they are hungry and they 
are ignorant. They are giving expression to their dis- 
satisfaction in the only way they understand. I don't 
expect that such people — " 

Mrs. Kittelhaus, "short, thin, faded, more like an old 
maid than a married woman," interrupts reproachfully, 
"Mr. Weinhold, Mr. Weinhold, how can you?" And then 
Dreissiger, the tutor's rich employer, bursts forth, "Mr. 
Weinhold, I am sorry to be obliged to — I didn't bring you 
into my house to give me lectures on philanthropy, and I 
must request that you will confine yourself to the educa- 
tion of my boys, and leave my other affairs entirely to 
me — entirely! Do you understand?" 

Weinhold "stands for a moment rigid and deathly pale, 
then bows, with a strained smile," and answers "in a low 
voice," "Certainly, of course I understand. I have seen 
this coming. It is my wish, too." And he goes out. 

When Mrs. Dreissiger remonstrates with her husband 
for his rudeness, he retorts, "Have you lost your senses, 
Rosa, that you're taking the part of a man who defends 
a low, blackguardly libel like that song?" 



150 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

"But, William, he didn't defend it." 

"Mr. Kittelhaus," demands Dreissiger, "did he defend 
it or did he not? " 

"His youth must be his excuse/' replies the pastor 
evasively. 

And Mrs. Kittelhaus exclaims, "I can't understand it. 
The young man comes of such a good, respectable family. 
His father held a public appointment for forty years, 
without a breath on his reputation. His mother was over- 
joyed at his getting this good situation here. And now — 
he himself shows so little appreciation of it." 

That is all. We hear almost nothing more of Weinhold 
during the remainder of the play; he has spoken scarcely 
four lines of dialogue; and yet he stands out sharply, both 
on his own account and by means of the effect he pro- 
duces upon other clearly drawn figures. 

If one is interested to know this author's methods in 
full-length portraiture, let him study the acute and un- 
scrupulous Mrs. Wolff, of "The Beaver Coat" and "The 
Conflagration." In these two plays Herr Hauptmann has 
set forth every conceivable phase of this cunning, sarcastic, 
iron-willed woman, one of the most completely individu- 
alized figures in the whole field of the modern stage. 

Progressive Versus Stationary Characters 

Should characters in drama develop or remain sta- 
tionary? Briefly, that must depend on the nature of the 
play. Mr. Edward Sheldon's heroine in " The High Road," 
who traverses half a century in the course of five acts, or 
Messrs. Bennett and Knoblauch's initial figures in "Mile- 



DRAMATIS PERSONS AND LIFE 151 

stones," who live a lifetime in three acts, might reasonably 
be expected to change. Since the majority of plays 
depict so much shorter periods, however, character evolu- 
tion is usually obviated. To the playwright the individual 
is valuable only for the two hours taken out of his life, with 
due allowance for the effects of the indicated intervals. 

This does not mean, on the other hand, that the dra- 
matist cares nothing for his people's past careers, as Mr. 
Brander Matthews would have us believe. 1 "Who was 
Tartuffe," he inquires, "before his sinister shadow crossed 
the threshold of Orgon's happy home? What misdeeds 
had he been already guilty of and what misadventures had 
he already met? MoHere does not tell us; and very likely 
he could not have told us. Probably he would have 
explained that it did not matter, since Tartuffe is what he 
is; he is what we see him; we have only to look at him 
and to listen to him to know all we need to know about 
him. . . . We find the melancholy Jaques in the Forest 
of Arden, moralizing at large and bandying repartees with 
a chance clown; he talks and we know him at once, as we 
know a man we have met many times. But who is he? 
What is his rank? Where does he come from? What 
brought him so far afield and so deep into the greenwood? 
Shakespeare leaves us in the dark as to all these things; 
and perhaps he was in the dark himself." 

On the other hand, we have the testimony of no less a 
master than Ibsen himself — in "Nachgelassene Schriften" — 
that he lived decades with his characters till he knew them. 
When comment was made to him upon the name of Nora 

1 A Study of the Drama, pages 156-157. 



152 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

in "A Doll's House," he replied, "Oh, her full name was 
Leonora; but that was shortened to Nora when she was 
quite a little girl. Of course, you know she was terribly- 
spoiled by her parents." And then there is the interesting 
anecdote of the conversation between Ibsen and his 
fellow-dramatist, Gunnar Heiberg, who insisted that 
Irene in "When We Dead Awaken" must be at least 
forty years old, whereas her creator sternly declared her 
to be but twenty-eight. Next day Heiberg received the 
following note: 

"Dear Gunnar Heiberg: 

You were right and I was wrong. I have looked up my 
notes. Irene is about forty years old. 

Yours, 

Henrik Ibsen." 

In fact, the great Scandinavian in almost every instance 
apparently turned his theme over and over in his mind, 
slowly working out the psychology of his characters and 
never recording them permanently until "he had them 
wholly in his power and knew them down to the last fold 
of their souls." Obviously such procedure requires an 
imaginative acquaintance with the past history, almost 
with the family trees, of the dramatis persona. 

In Monsieur Andre Picard's "UAnge gardien" — to cite a 
play already referred to in the chapter on plot — we are 
introduced to the mysterious Therese Duvigneau, a rather 
plain and taciturn widow of thirty, who at first impresses 
us — as she does the other personages — as being distinctly 
unpleasant. Little by little, however, as the action 



DRAMATIS PERSONS AND LIFE 1 53 

progresses, this strange, complex creature reveals herself, 
not as the cold, repellent misanthrope she first appears, 
but — incredibly enough— as a woman at bottom capable 
of ungovernable emotional outbursts, and instinct with 
a subtle and imperious charm. The chief part of this 
revelation takes place in the course of a rapid and tense 
scene during which our attitude toward this character 
undergoes a complete change, and we pass from dislike 
to a sympathetic comprehension. 

Individuals and Types May Balance 

Of course, the inevitable penalty exacted for such com- 
plexity in the portrayal of one individual is forced con- 
tentment with mere types for the other figures. The 
dramatist sacrifices his auxiliary characters to the pro- 
tagonist much "as the father of a family who would 
sacrifice his children to one among them. His play tends 
to be only a monograph." 

"The dramatist," says Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, "is 
only the mouthpiece of his characters, plus, of course, his 
knowledge of the technique of the theatre, which enables 
him to manoeuvre them. So he must assume an imper- 
sonal attitude toward them and permit them, so to speak, 
to develop out of themselves." This, doubtless, means a 
development not during the course of the play, but rather 
during the long period — rarely less than a year with 
Pinero — of the writing of the play. It is only this intimate 
acquaintance with the characters as individual men and 
women, this living on terms of complete familiarity with 



154 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

them through all the occurrences commonplace and 
extraordinary that go to make up a lifetime, that can 
guarantee absolute logic and consistency — to say nothing 
of freshness — of plot, and that can result in the rigid 
economy of materials the conditions of the theatre demand. 
Naturally, it is the leading figures, rather than the 
auxiliary ones, that determine the action of the drama. 
Generally speaking, character plays utilize fewer per- 
sonages than do story plays. This is, of course, because it 
takes time to portray character: — the method must be 
leisurely. Of late years compression has often been 
carried to the extreme. Not so long ago a prominent 
theatrical manager refused to read farther than the first 
page of a manuscript play when he saw that its cast 
numbered only five. Within a few weeks "The Climax," 
with four characters, had attained great popularity, after 
"The Easiest Way," with six, had already demonstrated 
its value. In the latter piece, in fact, there is slight reason 
why the optimistic showman and the negro maid should 
not have been omitted: neither contributes to the action 
or seriously bears upon the significance of the play. Of 
course, an undue sense of isolation is to be avoided, but 
there is always the possibility of producing the illusion of 
off-stage life by means of familiar sounds and passing 
figures. As a rule, the would-be playwright will be con- 
sulting his own best interests — so far as possible produc- 
tion of his work is concerned — by avoiding a superfluity 
of parts as of other expense-making elements. The four- 
act play with only three characters in it, on the other 
hand, not unreasonably excites prejudice. So, perhaps, 



DRAMATIS PERSONS AND LIFE 155 

such a piece, if it is very, very good, had better be sub- 
mitted to the manager without a preliminary list of the 
dramatis persona! 

Generally speaking, types alone are usually sufficient 
for the purposes of story plays, whereas character plays 
require individualized figures. Although to display freshly 
drawn personages in hackneyed situations is somewhat 
like putting new wine into old bottles — and new wine in 
new bottles is certainly best — nevertheless stereotyped 
figures are taboo in the successful drama even more than 
are trite incidents. Furthermore, as a rule, the charac- 
ters, which rarely develop in the play itself, should first 
have undergone a complete evolution in the mind of their 
creator. And in most instances the fewer the essential 
figures, the better the play will be. 

Questions and Exercises 

1. From one of Shakespeare's plays — "Hamlet" sug- 
gested — make a list of the characters actually essential 
to the plot. 

2. Why are they essential while others are not? 

3. Do modern plays employ characters not essential to 
the plot? If so, name an instance and show briefly why. 

4. What sort of names do you find given to characters 
in plays of today? 

5. Are the symbolic names, like Colonel Bully and 
Molly Millions, in vogue in the eighteenth and early nine- 
teenth centuries, in good taste today? 

6. Take one of your own plots, used in a previous 



156 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

assignment, and make a list of the characters, with out- 
lines of their relations each to the other. 

7. Criticise the characterization in any recent play 
from the standpoint of reality or of symbolism, as the 
case may require. 

8. What do you understand by an individualized char- 
acter and a typical character? Cite examples. 

9. Which sort do you find most common in present- 
day plays? Cite examples. 

10. Give the full dialogue of so much of an original 
scene as may be necessary to delineate a character 
indirectly, in the manner of Hauptmann, page 148. 

11. In brief outline only, give the biographical and 
personal details of a character, real or imaginary, who is 
individual enough to be the big figure in a play. 

12. In your own way, show how you might make him 
live on the stage. 

13. In psychological character drawing we are taken 
into a human soul and enabled to see how it works in 
given circumstances. Write a dialogue scene psycho- 
logically showing a woman struggling with the problem of 
whether she will sacrifice the interests of her second 
husband in order to further the interests of her son by a 
former marriage. 

14. Outline the same character before and after the 
great crisis in his life which has involved marked char- 
acter change. 

15. In the case of this husband, would you show his 
character directly or indirectly? 



DRAMATIS PERSONS AND LIFE 1 57 

16. Clip five items from magazines or newspapers con- 
taining material for dramatic characterization. 

17. For practice, take all the central characters in these 
five accounts and weave them together into a plot. What 
were your chief difficulties? 

18. Make a list of the sources for character study open 
to you personally. 

19. Should characters be modified, or even combined 
with others, for stage use? Give reasons. 

20. Draft a plot around "The Man from Ada," page 138, 
taking care to avoid any similarity to Mr. Biggers's play, 
"Inside the Lines." 

21. Cite any instance you can of plays in which char- 
acterization was badly done because of imperfect knowl- 
edge of the subject. 

22. Briefly describe six characters all of whom might 
well appear in the same play. Do not overlook the 
principle of contrast. 

23. Invent two dramatic situations which result in 
character changes in the characters. Note the distinction 
between "character" and "characters." 

24. Invent two dramatic situations which result from 
changes in character of the characters. 

25. Describe the actions of five comedy characters. 

Note: Invention assignments of this sort should be 
multiplied indefinitely. Special emphasis should be laid 
upon small self-revealing actions and remarks by the dram- 
atis persona; and also upon remarks by one character 
about another which connote more than they say. 



CHAPTER XIV 



PLOT-AND-CHARACTER HARMONY 

The plea that otherwise the plot would have been ruined, is 
ridiculous; such a plot should not in the first instance be con- 
structed. — Aristotle, Poetics. 

Though the subject of the imitation, who suggested the type, 
be inconsistent, still he must be consistently inconsistent. — Ibid. 

It may be observed, too, that although the representation of 
no human character should be quarrelled with for its inconsist- 
ency, we yet require that the inconsistencies be not absolute 
antagonisms to the extent of neutralization; they may be per- 
mitted to be oils and waters, but they must not be alkalies and 
acids. When in the course of the denouement, the usurer bursts 
forth into an eloquence virtue-inspired, we cannot sympathize 
very heartily in his fine speeches, since they proceed from the 
mouth of the selfsame egotist who, urged by a disgusting vanity, 
uttered so many sotticisms ... in the earlier passages of the 
play. — Edgar Allan Poe, Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Willis, and the 
Drama. 

The fundamental problem of the dramatist, as has 
been said, is the problem of plot-and-character harmony — 
which, being reduced to its lowest terms, amounts merely 
to a strict observance of natural logic. Observation may 
be most just and acute, and as a result men and women in 
plays may be exhibited with all manner of skill in con- 
trast and grouping, as well as with sympathetic individual 
portraiture; and yet, if what they are fails to accord with 
what they do, they most likely amount to no more than 



PLOT-AND-CHARACTER HARMONY 159 

wasted effort. In spite of this fact, however, a common 
defect in drama is the tendency to "plot-ridden" per- 
sonages, who, for the sake of the fable, are forever belying 
their own selves. 

To repeat, in the best serious plays everything of 
importance occurs as the result of an obvious and rea- 
sonable motive. We are never content to see a bad man 
do good deeds, or a good man bad ones; a wise man work 
stupidity, or a stupid man wisdom — merely that the 
story may easily advance. Such contradictions are 
always occurring in everyday life, but people act so for 
reasons of their own which are rarely apparent. In the 
play, however, we must be more than merely natural — 
probability is a sine qua non. 

Lack of Harmony Between Plot and Character 

In "The Big Idea," for instance, we are actually asked 
to believe that a New York theatrical producer would pay 
an unknown playwright twenty-two thousand dollars for 
an untried play. If the sum named had been a reason- 
able one — say rive hundred dollars at the utmost — then 
the postulate upon which the extravaganza hangs — 
that the banker father cannot raise so much money to 
avoid ruin — would have fallen to pieces. In "A Pair of 
Silk Stockings," we must do the best we can to harmonize 
with the eccentric but straightforward character of Sam 
Thornhill the fact that, when piqued at his wife's prefer- 
ence in motors, he ostentatiously took up with a disrepu- 
table woman just to show that he was "a bit knocked." 



l6o THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Doubtless this difficulty is largely a matter of opinion; 
certainly it does not suffice to diminish the charm of the 
bright little comedy. 

One notes the obvious fact that when these credulity- 
straining postulates deal with matters antecedent to the 
play itself — as Sarcey and others have pointed out — the 
spectator is usually willing to swallow the whole affair 
without much protest, providing that, these fundamentals 
being granted, the characters thereafter seem probable 
and consistent. In other words, resentment is likely to 
be aroused only when during the progress of the piece the 
characters are made to do what we feel they — being what 
they are — could not do, and all for the mere sake of 
furthering the advancement of the plot. Thus the char- 
acter of the hero in Mr. Hubert Henry Davies's "Outcast" 
is belittled by his obstinate clinging to the inferior creature, 
who once heartlessly threw him over for a rich old suitor, 
in the face of the vastly more desirable love and per- 
sonality of the girl his kindness has helped to develop into 
a woman of the strongest charm. In fact, the hero of this 
drama, in marked contrast to the heroine, is throughout a 
vague, indefinite figure. And the chief reason for this 
state of affairs is that Mr. Davies has not enough plot for 
a full evening's play. Certainly, if Geoffrey had been a 
convincing human being, in all the circumstances, the 
piece would have ended one act earlier than it did. Yet, 
whatever its deficiencies, "Outcast," at least for the char- 
acter study of its heroine, is most moving and effective. 

The unconvincing is always turning up. In Mr. B. 
Macdonald Hastings's arbitrary and conventional play 



PLOT-AND-CHARACTER HARMONY l6l 

"That Sort," reminiscent as it is of "East Lynne," "Miss 
Moulton," "Lady Windermere's Fan," "The Second 
Mrs. Tanqueray," and even others, the ultimate self- 
sacrifice of Diana Laska is wholly unacceptable. In Mr. 
Henry Arthur Jones's "Mary Goes First," a political 
leader, among other personages, is portrayed as of an 
incredible stupidity merely in order that the cleverness of 
the heroine may be emphasized by contrast. 

It should be understood that, in such criticism of specific 
defects as is offered here — and elsewhere in this book — 
sweeping condemnation of the plays mentioned is neither 
always nor often intended. Practically every drama 
referred to could be cited as exemplifying also innum- 
erable excellences of technique and matter. Many of 
these pieces have won a deserved popularity: the point 
of the criticism is simply that they might have been even 
better. There are, of course, plays almost totally devoid 
of merit, but they have been generally so short-lived and 
so little known as to be useless for purposes of illustration. 

In Mr. Augustus Thomas's "Arizona" a sensible army 
officer, having been told that his former friend, who is 
accused of attempted murder, has, at the noise of an 
unexpected shot, merely fired his pistol mechanically into 
the floor, does not, in seeking evidence, even think of 
probing there for the bullet that fits the prisoner's weapon. 
In Mr. James Forbes's play, "The Traveling Salesman," 
when a question of vital importance arises, a supposedly 
intelligent heroine is made to put implicit confidence in 
the obvious villain, refusing to believe the manifestly 
honest hero. In "Nobody's Daughter," the parents of an 



l62 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

illegitimate child, though young, prosperous, and in love, 
do not marry — for no apparent reason except that the 
heroine would then be somebody's daughter. In Mr. 
Arnold Bennett's "The Great Adventure," an artist with 
the fame and skill of a Titian is made to give up his art 
as well as his name and state of life for no credible reason 
other than the purposes of a highly improbable plot. 

These are all in a sense instances of the "plot-ridden" 
character in the drama: in each case somebody is forced 
by the exigencies of the fable to do what he could not 
possibly have done in real life and so to incite the imme- 
diate resentment of the thoughtful spectator, because, in 
asking him to believe the unbelievable, the playwright 
casts an inferential slur on the playgoer's intelligence. 
Often enough, too, it is for the sake of the most conven- 
tional melodrama that these distressing compromises occur. 

More frequently still, as has previously been noted, the 
dramatic personage is made to barter his birthright of 
actuality for that most specious mess of pottage, the 
"happy ending." For example, the American adaptor 
of Miss Elizabeth Baker's "Chains," made the monot- 
ony-mad clerk, about to escape from the deadening 
bondage, hail with joy that news of his prospective 
paternity which in the original was the death-blow to his 
last hopes of relief. Obviously this tampering merely 
perverted not only the character of Richard Wilson, but 
also the entire purpose of the play. 

A few years ago, on the other hand, when Mr. Joseph 
Medill Patterson's play, "The Fourth Estate," was first 
produced, it ended with the suicide of the hero, an idealistic 



PLOT-AND-CHARACTER HARMONY 163 

young journalist who had been baffled at every turn in his 
struggle to emancipate the press. Though thus invested 
with a specious air of tragedy, neither story nor hero was 
worthy of the dignity of death. Purely melodramatic, the 
termination was entirely arbitrary. For its probability it 
depended chiefly upon the exact interpretation of the 
protagonist's character. If he was a half-mad fanatic or 
an overwrought neurotic, suicide might be expected of 
him. But he was hardly either. As a result, when an 
alternative "happy ending" was substituted, wherein the 
hero accepted temporary defeat, set his jaw, and resolved 
on eventual victory, the play had not suffered in effec- 
tiveness. 

But all melodrama is not capable of similar adjustment. 
In the case of Monsieur Henri Bernstein's "Israel," the 
American version was made to accord with the alleged 
national requirement by means of a peculiarly atrocious 
violation of the sense and spirit of the play. The young 
hero, who has been an ardent Jew-baiter, has just learned 
that the Hebrew he has particularly assailed is his own 
father. In the original version this intelligence suddenly 
thrust upon him drives the protagonist to suicide as the 
only possible relief from the terrific race-conflict that 
wages within him. For American gratification, in the 
last act there was evoked practically from nowhere, a 
young woman who considerately married the hero to save 
his life. Even in melodrama strict logic of denouement 
is more to be desired than an arbitrary conclusion which 
strains probability to the breaking point and destroys 
character consistency. 



1 64 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Of late years it has been fairly well demonstrated that 
the demand for conventional endings is not inevitable. 
Laura Murdock's tragic relapse into the " easiest way" is a 
case in point. Farce and melodrama, being chiefly 
dependent upon plot, require a definite rounding up of 
loose ends. And surely we may say, in general, that 
serious comedy should at least be finished and not simply 
stopped. Of course, if it be mere photography, it will man- 
age to subsist without much reference to the rules of art. 

Plot-and-character harmony, let it be repeated, is both 
the chief problem of the dramatist and the first essential 
of a good play. Even in sheer melodrama, if it is to be 
worth while, the personages must not for the sake of the 
story be forced into glaring inconsistency. And the 
popular demand for the "happy ending" is decidedly 
not to be regarded as a legitimate excuse for last-act 
insults to the spectators' common sense. 

Questions and Exercises 

i. Suggest improved harmony between character and 
plot in any two of the cases criticised with which you are 
familiar. 

2. In your opinion, in any of the successful plays 
cited, which show weakness in plot-and-character har- 
mony, would a correction of these defects have resulted in 
greater success? 

3. Examine two of your previously constructed plots 
to see if you have offended in character probability. 
Frankly state your view. 



PLOT-AND-CHARACTER HARMONY 165 

4. If you have found any such defect, say how you 
propose to correct it. 

5. In your observation, do audiences easily discover 
defective harmony between plot and character, or are 
they usually blindly complacent? Give examples, if pos- 
sible. 

6. How have these matters previously affected you? 

7. From plays you have read or seen cite other instances 
of a lack in plot-and-character harmony. 



CHAPTER XV 



THE DIALOGUE 

Every phrase, with Dumas, hits the mark; as there is not in 
his plays an idle word, there is likewise none that is lost. His 
language is all muscles and nerves; it is action. And at the same 
time it gives to the idea a strict and decisive form, it sculptures 
it. If it often lacks literary purity and grammatical correctness, 
it has always dramatic relief. — Georges Pellissier, Le Mouve- 
ment Litteraire au XIX e Steele. 

I do not know whether one could find a single mot [detachable 
witticism] in Moliere. ... In revenge, the mots of passion, 
of character, of situation sparkle on every hand. . . . You will 
find not a single thing that is amusing because the person who 
utters it wishes to be amusing. He is so, without knowing it, 
by the sole fact of the situation in which he finds himself and of 
the character which the author has given him. — Francisque 
Sarcey, Le Mot et la Chose. 

After action, pantomime and dialogue are the chief 
means by which the personages in a drama reveal them- 
selves and tell the story in which they are involved. 

Pantomime 

Pantomime I name first because, from the dramatic 
standpoint, it is the more effective agency. Quantita- 
tively, it is by its nature limited. Gesture, attitude, and 
play of countenance aside, a hundred things are usually 
said for every one that is done. Yet, in a broad sense, 
as has often been averred, a good play should be reducible 



THE DIALOGUE 1 67 

in its essentials to pantomime: otherwise it is likely to 
prove upon analysis to be largely composed of non-dra- 
matic conversation. 

The pantomime element lies chiefly, of course, in the 
hands of the player rather than of the playwright. The 
author, however, must have full knowledge of all the 
feasible expedients of dumb show that may best be 
utilized in the expression of his story and characters, and 
he must provide for them in advance, if merely to avoid 
their duplication in the dialogue. Wherever pantomime 
may be employed, repetitive dialogue is not only uneco- 
nomical, it is positively devitalizing. What can be shown 
by gesture, movement, facial expression, significant pause, 
should rarely also be said in words. On the other hand, 
it must be remembered that pantomime has its limita- 
tions, — that, after all, it is not possible to "indicate by 
the wriggling of the left shoulder that one's paternal 
grandfather was born in Shropshire." 

Kinds of Dialogue 

Dialogue in the English drama may usually be classed as 
poetic, rhetorical, or realistic. 

The poetic is generally in the form of blank verse. It 
belongs to a convention that is now rarely employed — a 
form of the ancient assumption that the heroic personages 
of tragedy in particular speak an exalted and ornate 
language not common to ordinary mortals. Similarly the 
characters in grand opera, as everybody knows, discourse 
in song. 



1 68 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Rhetorical dialogue partakes of the same heightened 
nature as the poetical, though it is usually mere orna- 
mented and elaborately wrought prose. At the present 
time neither poetic nor rhetorical dialogue is in much 
demand in the theatre. Dramatists like Rostand and 
Hauptmann and Stephen Phillips still employ verse; 
others, like Mr. Percy Mackaye in several of his plays, 
choose for their medium a decorated and highly polished 
prose; but the large majority of playwrights assiduously 
cultivate realism in the speech of their characters. 

There are occasional hybrid efforts to combine the 
realistic content with the poetic form, to put everyday 
speech into blank verse, or to mingle the realistic and the 
symbolical in iambic pentameters. Mr. Witter Bynner's 
little tragedy, "Tiger," is an example of the former; 
Mr. Israel Zangwill's "The War God," of the latter 
endeavor. In both these plays, for the most part, 
ordinary, unheightened speech is cut into five-foot lengths. 
The presence of the symbolical element in "The War 
God" perhaps justifies the expedient. But — to me — the 
gutter-speech of the vile creatures in "Tiger" when put 
into blank verse produces the effect of a horrible bur- 
lesque and detracts from the forcefulness of the narrative. 
For the sake of the meter, moreover, the characters are 
made to use interchangeably complete forms or contrac- 
tions — "I'll, I will; cannot, can't," and the like — without 
regard to the probabilities, and so in opposition to the 
very effect of realism desired. 

Generally speaking, model realistic dialogue is that of 
which the playgoer can say that it sounds as if it were 



THE DIALOGUE 1 69 

being spoken for the first time, had not been written, and 
could not, on another occasion, be exactly repeated. Of 
course, there are plays making some pretense to lifelikeness 
that employ a dialogue that is frankly artificial, crowded 
with clever ;onceits and generally reflecting the tradition 
of euphuism that has clung to the English drama for cen- 
turies. "Half the young ladies in London spend their 
evenings making their fathers take them to plays that are 
not fit for elderly people to see," is a typical Shavian 
wrong-side-out witticism from "Fanny's First Play." 
But, amusing though it may be, it is not nearly so telling 
as Dora's genially impudent retort to old Gilbey's heart- 
broken cry, "My son in gaol!" "Oh, cheer up, old dear," 
she says, "it won't hurt him: look at me after fourteen 
days of it: I'm all the better for being kept a bit quiet. 
You mustn't let it prey on your mind." Or compare 
Duvallet's elaborate, "You have made an end of the 
despotism of the parent; the family council is unknown 
to you; everywhere in this island one can enjoy the soul- 
liberating spectacle of men quarreling with their brothers, 
defying their fathers, refusing to speak to their mothers" 
— with this other delicious bit: 

Mrs. Gilbey. Bobby must have looked funny in your 
hat. Why did you change hats with him? 

Dora. I don't know. One does, you know. 

Mrs. Gilbey. I never did. The things people do! I 
can't understand them. Bobby never told me he was 
keeping company with you. His own mother! 

The latter passage obviously appeals because of its 



170 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

naturalness; it does not impress upon you the fact that it 
has been thought up in advance. 

The Principles of Dialogue 

Every line of dialogue, Mr. Augustus Thomas tells us, 
should either reveal character, advance the story, or get a 
laugh. As for the detachable witticism, it is justifiable in 
the realistic drama to the extent that it is probable. A 
clever man will say clever things; a dull man will not. 
And even the wit will not always be at his best — though 
it is no deadly sin if, on the stage, he is. 

Any speech that does not harmonize with the mood or 
tone of the scene or with the general atmosphere is, of 
course, strictly out of place. Hamlet has said his say 
about certain villainous practices that make the judicious 
grieve, and it applies as thoroughly to the tasteless play- 
wright as to the tasteless clown. In farce and fantastic 
plays wit per se will be much more welcome than in serious 
drama. Indeed, keynote and tone may sometimes be 
struck and maintained to the best advantage by means of 
detachable witticisms. All the rest of the dialogue, how- 
ever, should be composed of that which reveals character 
or advances plot or does both. 

The principles that chiefly apply to satisfactory dra- 
matic dialogue are selection, or economy, and emphasis. 
The characters should speak in what appears to be their 
natural everyday language, and yet they must avoid the 
repetition and digression of ordinary conversation, and 
what they say must be carefully arranged with a view to 
forceful effect. Above all, the dialogue must never be 



THE DIALOGUE 171 

allowed to get in the way of either plot or characteriza- 
tion, lest one or the other trip over it. 

An inevitable concomitant of naturalism has been the 
introduction of inconsequent verbosity on the stage. Com- 
pare the leisurely irrelevancies of a play, say by Mr. 
Granville Barker, with the crisp, abbreviated, fragmentary 
speech of the characters in, say Mr. Augustus Thomas's 
play, "As a Man Thinks." In the one case you find 
interminable disquisitions, which impede action and are 
at best only slightly revelatory of character — sometimes 
not at all. In the latter case you are more likely to come 
across a page like this: 

VEDAH 
I don't want Mr. Burrill and Mr. De Lota to meet. 



Not meet — ? 
Just yet. 
Why not? 



SEELIG 
VEDAH 
SEELIG 



VEDAH 

I haven't told anybody of my engagement to Mr. 

De Lota. 

SEELIG 
Well? 

VEDAH 
Well — he carries himself so — so — 

SEELIG 
Proudly? 



172 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

VEDAH 
So much like a proprietor that it's hard to explain to 
others — strangers especially. 

SEELIG 
By "strangers especially" you mean Mr. Burrill? 

VEDAH 
Yes. 

SEELIG 
Is Mr. BurrilPs opinion important? 

VEDAH 
His refinement is important. 

SEELIG 
Refinement? 

VEDAH 
Yes — the quality that you admire in men — the quality 
that Mr. De Lota sometimes lacks. 

Here, obviously enough, we are getting swift exposition, 
story, and character — all with the least possible expendi- 
ture of language. 

The amateur playwright will find that, in first drafts at 
least, superfluous words, speeches, even scenes, will creep 
in with an amazing facility. His only defense is eternal 
vigilance coupled with a tireless blue pencil. I fancy the 
original page of the dialogue just quoted was considera- 
bly more elaborate. But the useless has been rigidly 
eliminated, with a distinct gain, not only in speed and 
effectiveness, but also in the realistic approximation of life. 

As for emphasis, the dramatic line, it has been said, 



THE DIALOGUE 1 73 

should be like an arrow — feathered at one end and barbed 
at the other. It is hiding one's light under a bushel to 
conceal the point in the unemphatic middle of a sentence, 
no matter if that be the habitual practice of the average 
conversationalist in real life. 

Things Taboo 

On the other hand, it is well to avoid the needless 
repetition by the second speaker of the emphatic word 
last uttered by the first. Thus: 

- JOHN 
Don't you remember about to-morrow? 

MARY 
To-morrow? 

JOHN 

To-morrow is my birthday. 

MARY 
Your birthday? 

Necessarily this makes for monotony and, if continued long 
enough, for madness. 

Equally reprehensible is the use of long and involved 
sentences, where short staccato abbreviations and frag- 
mentary phrases are indicated by both the characters and 
the situation. As a matter of fact, very few of us speak 
much in full-rounded sentences: a word or a phrase does 
ample duty, and what is suggested suffices without being 
actually said. " Create characters that are human beings, ' ' 
was Clyde Fitch's formula for success in the drama; 



174 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

"place them in situations that are reflections of life itself; 
make them act — and, above all things, have them talk 
like human beings." 

The soliloquy, the monologue, the "aside," the "apart," 
as we are so often reminded, are practically taboo on the 
stage of to-day. It is not worth while to spend time in a 
discussion of the reasons and justification for their banish- 
ment. The would-be playwright should simply avoid 
them. As a matter of fact, in view of our universal lean- 
ings toward strict realism, he would do well also to discard 
certain related devices which, though still in fashion, are 
essentially unnatural. Such, for example, is the dialogue 
carried on "down stage" by two characters, which the 
audience can distinctly hear, but which is supposed to be 
inaudible to the other actors on the scene. Cases in point 
are the restaurant scenes in "The Phantom Rival" and 
"Life." Similarly, the pantomime conversation indulged 
in "up stage" and letters read aloud purely for the 
benefit of the audience are artifices which the ultra-realistic 
might reasonably regard with contempt. Occasionally 
some of these conventions actually lead to a deplorable 
absurdity, as in the case already cited of "La Samari- 
taine." 1 

Connotation in Dialogue 

Naturally, the best dramatic dialogue of all is that which 
is not merely denotative but also connotative — that which 
implies and suggests a freightage of emotional significance 
it could not possibly carry in actual expression. For ex- 

1 See page 127. 



THE DIALOGUE 1 75 

ample, in "UAnge gardien" the audience as well as several 
of the characters are eager to ascertain who it was that 
for five seconds turned on the electric switch beside the 
outer door and so discovered Madame Trelart tete-a-tete 
with her lover, Georges Charmier. At length, in the 
presence of Monsieur Trelart, when direct speech would 
be out of the question, Therese Duvigneau, Madame's 
self-constituted guardian angel, remarks — in reply to 
another's platitude, "So many things can happen in 
half an hour," — "Even in half a second. The instant of a 
flash of lightning is long enough to change a destiny." 

"Very true," observes someone. 

"And very banal," adds Therese with a smile. 

Georges Charmier watches her narrowly as he suggests, 
"Banalities sometimes have a very specific meaning." 

"That," replies Therese, sustaining his gaze, "which 
one wishes to give them." 

And a moment later she casually remarks to Georges, 
apropos of his quarters, which are under discussion, " You 
don't even have electricity here!" adding, "Though I'm 
quite sure you have had plenty of it!" 

In the fourth act of "Cyrano de Bergerac," after 
Roxane has arrived at the camp with her carriage-load of 
provisions, the famished cadets of Gascony, who have been 
stuffing themselves, observe the approach of the unpopular 
Comte de Guiche. Quickly hiding victuals and drink, 
they proceed to make merry at his expense. He has just 
signalled for an attack of the enemy, which is to be directed 
at their position, and he announces that he has had a 
cannon brought up for their use in case of need. 



176 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

"As you are not accustomed to cannon," he adds dis- 
dainfully, "beware of the recoil." 

"Pfft!" sneers a cadet. "Gascon cannon never recoil." 

"You're tipsy," says Guiche in surprise. "But what 
with?" 

"The smell of powder!" is the proud reply. 

Earlier in the play, it will be recalled, the Comte, angered 
at Cyrano's defiance, demands, "Have you read 'Don 
Quixote?' " 

"I have," replies Bergerac, "and I take off my hat to 
him." 

"Meditate, then, upon the episode of the windmills," 
says Guiche, going; "for when a man attacks them, it 
often happens that the sweep of their great wings lands 
him in the mud." 

"Or else," retorts Cyrano, "in the stars!" 

In "Within the Law" Mary Turner marries Richard 
Gilder as part of her scheme of revenge for the wrongs 
done her by his father. When in the Gilder home a 
"stool pigeon" is shot by an accomplice of Mary, the 
police at first accuse her of being guilty. This she denies; 
whereupon the officer, pointing to her husband, asks, 
"Did he kill him?" 

"Yes," she answers. 

Naturally, the immediate suggestion is that she intends 
to add the disgrace and possible death of Richard to her 
revenge upon the elder Gilder. 

However, the next moment Mary adds, "The dead man 
was a burglar: my husband shot him in defense of his 
home." 



THE DIALOGUE 1 77 

Perhaps these examples are not the most apt; but they 
will probably suffice to illustrate connotative dramatic 
dialogue. Mastery of this medium is, of course, to be 
gained only through much practice and an infinite capacity 
for revision, as well as through the most complete imagina- 
tive grasp of character and situation. 

Connotation in Pantomime 

As may readily be understood, this element of connota- 
tion or suggestiveness in the drama does not confine itself 
exclusively to speech. Pantomime, "business," depends 
largely on the same quality for its effectiveness. 1 

"Cyrano de Bergerac" is rich in instances. The proud 
cadets, unwilling to let Guiche see that they suffer from 
their hunger, pretend absorption in their playing and 
smoking, as he enters the camp. When he boasts of 
his trick in escaping the enemy by throwing away his 
white scarf, asking, "What do you think of that for a 
stroke?" the other Gascons feign not to be listening for 
Cyrano's reply. But they keep their cards and dice-boxes 
poised in the air, and the smoke of their pipes stays in 
their cheeks, till Bergerac answers, "I think that Henri IV 
would never have consented, even though the enemy were 
overwhelming him, to have stripped himself of his white 

1 "The objective writer tries to discover the action or gesture 
which the state of mind must inevitably lead to in the personage 
under certain given circumstances. And he makes him so con- 
duct himself . . . that all his actions, all his movements shall 
be the expression of his inmost nature, of all his thoughts and 
all his impulses or hesitancies. — Guy de Maupassant, Preface 
to Pierre et Jean. 



178 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

plume." Then there is silent delight among the cadets. 
The cards fall, the dice rattle, the smoke is puffed out. 

"The ruse succeeded, though!" Guiche maintains. 
And there ensues the same general suspension of play and 
of smoking. 

"Still one does not lightly resign the honor of being a 
target," retorts Cyrano. And again cards and dice fall, 
and smoke is exhaled. 

Bergerac's superb " gestes" — the tossing of the purse of 
gold to the discomfited comedians; the flinging at the 
feet of their employer, Guiche, of his vanquished bravos' 
tattered hats; the unexpected production of the white 
scarf which the Comte had said no man could retrieve, 
and live — these and many others are obvious examples of 
connotative pantomime. And, to repeat what must be 
often said, dialogue in the drama should never begin until 
after pantomime has left off. That which the "business" 
has so emphatically expressed is only weakened by repe- 
tition in words. 

Sarcey, writing of the "Fedora" of Sardou, tells us, 
"This whole first act is a marvel of mise en scene. It is 
made up of nothings, and yet there issues from it an 
inexpressible emotion. It is life itself, real life, placed 
upon the stage. The author, in his malice (I use this 
word purposely), has set the inquest on the front stage, 
while the wounded man is being cared for behind a closed 
door. Each time this door opens for some detail of serv- 
ice, the image of the dying man appears to interrupt the 
investigation, which a moment later is resumed." 

It all springs from the fundamental fact which Sarcey 



THE DIALOGUE 1 79 

himself more than once avers he will not cease to repeat — 
and which his followers have often enough reiterated: 
"Tout est illusion au the&tre" 

Dialogue Not a Substitute for Character or Plot 

So far as dialogue is concerned, above all else the play- 
wright must remember that no mere verbal felicity will 
ever substitute for character and story in the drama. 
There are, as I have said, whole scenes of scintillant 
epigram-making in Wilde, but there are also brilliancy of 
characterization and ingenuity of plot. There are many 
lines of fresh and captivating music in "The Playboy of 
the Western World," but there are humanity and struggle 
in generous measure besides. 

In the plays of lesser yet able playwrights action often 
lags while dialogue flourishes. It is thus even in so inter- 
esting a conception as Mr. Israel ZangwilFs "The Melting 
Pot," where at times declamation too greatly predominates 
over dramatic incident. It is so, too, in "The Trail of the 
Lonesome Pine," — oddly enough, dramatized by that arch- 
realist, Mr. Eugene Walter, — in "The Winterfeast" of 
Mr. Charles Rann Kennedy, and in the "To-morrow" of 
Mr. Percy Mackaye. 

"The work of the theatre," Sarcey avers, "is above all a 
work of condensation. The mind of the author must make 
all the reflections, his heart must experience all the senti- 
ments the subject comprises, but on condition that he 
give to the spectator only the substance of them. This 
phrase should sum up twenty pages; that word should 
contain the gist of twenty phrases. It is for the playgoer, 



l8o THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

who is our collaborator much more than we realize, to find 
in the little that is said to him all that which is not said; 
and he will never fail to do so, so long as the phrase is 
just, and the word true." 

Questions and Exercises 

i. From one of your own plots, describe a situation and 
give explicit directions for the "business" — all pantomime. 

2. From any printed modern play quote a specimen of 
excellent poetic dialogue. Be sure to choose a play that 
has had actual stage production. 

3. Similarly, give a good specimen of rhetorical dialogue. 

4. Similarly, of realistic dialogue. 

5. Write two specimens of realistic dialogue based on 
one of your own plots. 

6. Write a specimen of dialogue using either epigram 
or delicate humor. 

7. Write a bit of dialogue intended to reveal character. 

8. Write a bit of dialogue intended to advance the plot. 
Base it on one of your own plots and explain your object 
in using the dialogue. 

9. Cite as many instances as you can of (a) connotative 
dialogue; (b) connotative pantomime. 



CHAPTER XVI 



KINDS OF PLAYS 

If the struggle is that of a will against nature or against 
destiny, against itself or against another will, the spectacle will 
generally be tragic. It will generally be comic, if the struggle is 
that of a will against some base instinct, or against some stupid 
prejudice, against the dictates of fashion, or against the con- 
ventions we call social. — Ferdinand Brunetiere, Les Epoques 
du Thedtre Frangais. 

It is true that the tragic fused with the comic, Seneca mingled 
with Terence, produces no less a monster than was Pasiphae's 
Minotaur. But this abnormity pleases: people will not see any 
other plays but such as are half serious, half ludicrous; nature 
herself teaches this variety from which she borrows part of her 
beauty. — Lope de Vega, as quoted by Lessing, Dramatic Notes. 

Under the general division of story plays will naturally 
fall melodrama and farce. As character plays, comedy and 
tragedy may be classified. Nondescript dramatic pieces 
in which story, character, or neither, may predominate 
may be conveniently designated — when they at all 
deserve the title — as plays of ideas. 

Dr. Hennequin, in his "Art of Playwriting," mentions 
the following different kinds of plays: tragedy; comedy; 
drame, or Schauspiel; the society play, otherwise known 
as the piece, or the emotional drama; melodrama; spec- 
tacular drama; musical drama; farce comedy, or farcical 
comedy; farce; burlesque; burletta; comedietta. And 



1 82 THE TECHNIQUE OE PLAY WRITING 

he further subdivides comedy into ancient classic comedy, 
romantic comedy, comedy of manners, and comedy 
drama. 

At least when considering the drama historically, we 
have to take into account also the mystery, the morality, 
the miracle, the interlude, the chronicle, the history play, 
the tragedy of blood, the tragi-comedy, the comedy of 
humors, and the heroic play. And nowadays the satire — 
such as "What the Public Wants," or "Fanny's First 
Play;" and the fantasy— "Chantecler," "The Yellow 
Jacket," "The Poor Little Rich Girl," "The Lady from 
the Sea," "The Legend of Leonora" — have almost 
assumed the proportions and distinctiveness of separate 
forms. 

Obviously, these are all to a large extent overlapping 
categories. Moreover, when we boil the entire nomen- 
clature down to its essentials, we find that only comedy 
and tragedy are fundamental, and the principal distinc- 
tions arise according as the stress is laid on characteriza- 
tion or on plot. 

Dramatists of to-day frequently hesitate to classify 
their works. They call their pieces "plays" and leave it 
to the critics to be more specific. Often enough, too, the 
dramatists are amply justified by the critics' disagreement. 
As a rule, the tendency has been to put on the loftier 
interpretation — to speak of farce or farce-comedy as 
comedy, and of melodrama and its variants as tragedy. 

It must not be inferred, however, that it is unimportant 
for the playwright to be reasonably certain as to the 
proper classification of his work. On the contrary, one of 



KINDS OF PLAYS 1 83 

the principal sources of failure is the "romantic" mingling 
of the genres 1 in drama, the variation in the same piece 
from true comedy to mere farce, and vice versa; from 
comedy to melodrama; from character stress to strictly 
plot emphasis. As has been pointed out, this does not 
mean to say that farce and comedy, farce and melodrama, 
melodrama and tragedy, comedy and tragedy, may not 
be combined in successful plays. But such blendings are 
full of risk, except where managed with the utmost skill. 
Nothing is more confusing to the spectator than an 
abrupt and awkward shift of emphasis or key. Yet such 
an effect is only too easy for the playwright who has ill 
considered his characters, and who accordingly is prone 
to slip into conventional grooves of story- telling. 

Tendency toward Melodrama 

Since the public likes plot, and the muthos is really more 
essential than the ithos, and, furthermore, because it is 
easier to tell a story than it is to portray character effec- 
tively in the play, the tendency is always toward the 
predominance of farce and melodrama. In fact, realistic 
melodrama is the classification that blankets the majority 
of successful American plays. Our "romantic dramas" — 
all the cloak-and-sword pieces of the end of the last 
century — are sheer melodrama. So is most of our 
"tragedy." Now there is distinctly no shame attached to 
the writing of the melodramatic, at least not when it con- 
fesses its identity frankly. The harm lies merely in the 

1 For definitions of, and distinctions among, the various kinds 
of plays, see the glossary which prefaces this volume. 



1 84 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

tendency to excess, the temptation to disregard truth and 
logic to the point of absurdity and to produce a lying 
"picture of life" capable of misleading the unsophisticated 
while it grieves the judicious. This is not to inveigh against 
idealism and fictional dreaming. By all means let us gild 
the dull realities of life with innocent illusions. But let 
us not deceive ourselves into accepting impractical visions 
for truth, since by so doing we are likely to lead ourselves 
into hypocrisy and sloth. 

It has already been noted how dramatists have often 
exhibited a tendency to get away from reality into 
theatricism somewhere about the middle of a play. Mr. 
Porter Emerson Browne, for example, began his melo- 
drama, "The Spendthrift," with an excellent portrayal of 
the extravagant wife who heedlessly ruins her husband. 
In the second act, however, he departed incontinently 
from material inherently of true drama and plunged into 
an artificial melodramatic situation, for the purposes of 
which he had to bring on a character that had scarcely 
been named theretofore and that was utterly unreal. 
Frankly fabricated stage fables, like Mr. Browne's "A 
Fool There Was," or "Madame X," or "The Master 
Mind," or "The Hawk," have their place; but authors — 
and we — should know what it is. 

Improvement in Melodrama 

An inevitable result of the workings of the realistic 
movement has been the moderation and general improve- 
ment of the tone of both melodrama and farce. We are 
forcibly struck with this fact when we read — and more 



KINDS OF PLAYS 185 

especially when we witness revivals of — old specimens of 
these genres and compare them with the modern product. 
The old-style melodrama was a fabric of what we now 
consider absurd fustian and bombast. The hero was 
outrageously heroic, the villain incredibly villainous, and 
the heroine unspeakably guileless and na'ive. Obviously 
they were but puppets: when their strings became inex- 
tricably tangled, the Master of the Show appeared in the 
character of Deus ex Machina and swiftly straightened 
them out. For example, after George R. Sims, in 
"The Lights o' London," has made his hero lose wife, 
liberty, and fortune, he restores all three at the final 
curtain by means of a sub-villain turned state's evi- 
dence and an unsuspected will that gets conveniently 
discovered. 

In our melodrama to-day we require unconventional 
complications, soft-pedalling upon the arbitrary, 1 and at 
least some pretense of inevitability, together with a 
naturalness of dialogue directly opposed to the stilted 
rhetoric of the early Victorian period. In other words, 
we are elevating our melodrama, at least in some respects. 
We certainly are not impressed as we used to be, in the 
theatre, with blood-and-thunder mountain feuds and 
Wild West primitivism — witness the recent experience of 
"The Battle Cry" and "Yosemite." Heaven knows, we 
get more than enough of this sort of claptrap in our 
motion pictures. 

However, the fact of this change of attitude does not 
mean that we are not still willing to swallow almost 

1 See page 121. 



1 86 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

unlimited doses of the arbitrary, particularly when the 
dialogue is fairly realistic and there is a superficial pretense 
of actuality in the characterization. We strain at a gnat 
like "Rosedale," but we make no bones of swallowing 
camels like "The Nigger" or "La Rafale." In Mr. Shel- 
don's piece we have a hero who happens to be of the proud- 
est and most conspicuous family in a Southern state and at 
the same time of negro blood. The envious villain happens 
to discover a letter that reveals the taint. The hero's 
negro cousin happens to be in danger of lynching and to 
appeal to him for protection. And when, in Act I, this 
cousin's mother goes to the very verge of revealing to the 
hero this undesirable consanguinity, the hero happens not 
to grow curious enough to ask her what she is so obviously 
on the point of disclosing. All this is of the theatre merely 
and wholly foreign to life as everyone knows it. Yet 
"The Nigger" gets a much more respectful hearing than 
"The Lights o' London" — gets almost the hearing, in 
fact, that it would have deserved had it been the great 
tragedy its theme implies. 

As for Monsieur Henri Bernstein, his popular pieces 
are all artificial specimens of theatrical joinery, built 
often of specious materials: he is obviously Scribe plus 
Sardou plus the trappings of modern realism, and his 
contribution to the drama is a renewed emphasis on the 
climax which delivers "the punch" by seeming to reach 
its height and then resuming its activities on a still loftier 
emotional level. The device is similar to that of the idol- 
ized tenor of the hour, who wins and holds favor through 
reserving a super-high-note for the moment when the top 



KINDS OF PLAYS 1 87 

of human lung-power would already appear to have been 
reached. 

After all, the legitimate business of melodrama, like that 
of the astonishing tenor, is to furnish thrills. At the Grand 
Guignol in Paris the thrill is founded upon horror. In 
our popular detective-and-criminal shockers — "The Con- 
spiracy," "Within the Law," "The Deep Purple," "The 
Argyle Case," "Jim the Penman," "Arsene Lupin," 
"Raffles," "Sherlock Holmes," "Under Cover," "Kick 
In" — it is audacity and the narrow escape that make us 
grip our chair-arms and lean forward in our seats. Melo- 
drama, then, will be successful in proportion as it provides 
ever-heightening suspense and a series of pulse-quicken- 
ing situations in the order of climax. 

Farce 

As for farce, its business is to provoke hilarity, not 
merely intermittent and casual, but continual and increas- 
ing. Its situations must be always more and more excru- 
ciatingly funny up to a grand climax of mirth, and thence 
quickly to a still laughable solution. No mere aggregation 
of verbal felicities and inserted jests will suffice: the humor 
must chiefly arise from the complications of the plot, like 
those in "Twin Beds" or "A Full House," and whenever 
the fun lags disaster is imminent. 

Amateur melodramatists usually err on the side of 
excess, amateur farceurs on the side of insufficiency of 
situations. There is less necessity, indeed, for humanizing 
the figures in farce than there is in melodrama. The 
puppets must be dexterously manipulated every moment. 



1 88 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

And success usually depends upon the spectator's willing- 
ness not to look for any actual relation between the play 
and life. Everyone knows that as a rule in farce the story 
would end almost any time that one of the characters 
became human enough to explain to his fellows the point 
of mystification upon which the entire action turns. And 
likewise one may be interested in the violent manoeuvres 
of the figures in a melodrama like "A Fool There Was" or 
"To-day" or "The Story of the Rosary" only so long as 
he makes no effort to see in it a reflection of life. When 
one does that, the whole preposterous fabric becomes 
intolerably grotesque. Illusion — voluntary illusion — is the 
spectator's only passport to enjoyment. 

Character Plays 

If an excess of plot with a deficiency of characterization 
is likely to fail of public approval in the theatre, so also 
mere stage galleries of portraits, even though of distinct 
individuals, if unrelated in an interesting fable, are ill 
calculated for success. Many of the pundits of to-day 
would doubtless be pleased if drama demanded nothing 
more than casual revelations of human nature, but the 
populace persists in requiring that these revelations be 
made through stories. And primarily the theatre de- 
pends for its existence on the populace. 

Of course, there have been character plays of very slight 
plot that have won a deservedly large measure of success. 
One readily recalls "Pomander Walk" and "The Passing 
of the Third Floor Back." But one can also remember 
many plotless plays that have regularly "died a-bornin'." 



KINDS OF PLAYS 1 89 

There is, to be sure, the so-called "comedy of atmos- 
phere," which is a mere representation of some specific 
phase of existence, without emphasis upon either plot or 
character. "The Weavers" of Hauptmann and "The 
Madras House" of Barker belong in this class — neither of 
them calculated to make a popular appeal in the theatre. 
In view of the attitude common to the mass of playgoers, 
the dramatist certainly should select from the lives of the 
real men and women he is putting into his comedy or his 
tragedy those possible incidents and episodes of conflict 
which not only best reveal the characters themselves but 
can also be arranged in an orderly and climacteric series 
adapted to the maintenance of suspense. Beyond doubt, 
it requires much skill and patience to do this well — far 
more, indeed, than merely to troop the personages cine- 
matographically across the stage in insignificant disorder 
— but the effort is richly worth the while. 

"To combine as much as possible of the theatric," says 
Mr. Henry James, 1 "with as much of the universal as the 
theatric will take — that is the constant problem, and one 
in which the maximum and minimum of effect are separ- 
ated from each other by a hair-line. The theatric is so 
apt to be the outward, and the universal to be the inward, 
that, in spite of their enjoying scarcely more common 
ground than fish and fowl, they yet often manage to peck 
at each other with fatal results. The outward insists on 
the inward's becoming of its own substance, and the 
inward resists, struggles, bites, kicks, tries at least to drag 
the outward down. The disagreement may be a very 

1 The Critic, November, 1901. 



190 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

pretty quarrel and an interesting literary case; it is only 
not likely to be a successful play." 

Plays of Ideas 

Doubtless the recipe for writing the play of ideas begins 
"First catch your idea." And when it has been captured, 
it will have to be mirrored by means of more or less 
human personages, in at least some semblance of a plot. 
As a matter of fact, almost any good play is a play of ideas 
plus a play of characters plus a play of plot. It is the 
piece that is deficient in the last two ingredients that often 
enough falls back upon its ideas for its only means of 
support. A play that is most readily and exclusively 
classifiable as a play of ideas is likely to be a very poor play, 
if, indeed, it does not turn out to be no play at all. It may 
be a mere series of scenes, with almost no story and the 
merest types for personages. In that case, it is really an 
animated tract — little more than a modern Pseudo- 
Augustinian sermon — dependent for its success upon the 
moral it involves, and therefore not amenable to the 
ordinary canons of art. 

Much is being said nowadays about this "new" drama, 
which is in reality only the result of an increased effort 
on the part of the theatre to relate itself to the character- 
istic social and political unrest of the times. After all, 
the very term "drama of ideas" is in a sense self -contra- 
dictory, since the drama is essentially not a matter of 
intellectual, but of emotional appeal. And so far as 
morals are concerned, and as for problems individual or 
social, the theatre is far more available and effective as a 



KINDS OF PLAYS 191 

teacher by example than by precept. The play of ideas is 
usually only a masquerading preachment; and, of course, 
if there is an ass in the lion's skin, sooner or later he is 
recognized by his braying. 

We are told that in Paris, which is the home of cubism 
and futurism and every other bizarre and outre pretense of 
artistic evolution and reform, the "new" drama has been 
carried even to the point where silence or mere general 
talk about the weather is to be employed for conveying 
the impressions of the most violent passion — since in real 
life people who are angry or jealous usually remain silent 
or employ language only to conceal emotion! After all, 
this preposterous undertaking is only the logical out- 
growth of Monsieur Maeterlinck's mystic endeavors to 
"express the inexpressible by means of that which does 
not occur." 

Perhaps the only thing of significance about the "new" 
drama is the fact that it is urging forward the slowly 
developing popular feeling for character and for the 
spiritual and the psychological, rather than for mere 
physical action in the theatre. As the masses grow in 
discrimination, they will naturally put less and less em- 
phasis upon mere narrative, more and more upon the 
significant facts of human nature and experience. But 
this process may be easily urged too far, with consequent 
reaction and perhaps retrogression. Certainly there is 
no possibility of abruptly wrenching the drama out of the 
emotional and into the intellectual realm. When that 
can be done, drama will, in fact, have ceased to be drama. 

What is chiefly desirable in the theatre is not so much 



192 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

plays of ideas as plays with ideas. As men like Huxley 
have frequently reiterated, the emotional and the intel- 
lectual processes are not separate and distinct; and the 
higher the degree of general civilization the more com- 
pletely will these two phases of self-activity coalesce and 
cooperate. The great questions of human conduct and 
relationships are nearly all worthy, not only of debate, 
but also of dramatic treatment. Character in conflict 
with environment and heredity is at the bottom of all our 
chief individual problems, and such conflict is essentially 
dramatic in the extreme. 

Questions and Exercises 

1. From all the sources at your command, make as full 
a list of kinds of plays as you can. 

2. Adopt some general scheme of grouping and place 
each kind in a suitable category. 

3. In a sentence or two, describe the essential nature of 
each. Try to differentiate each kind from others akin to it. 

4. Without forcing, try to find a play that illustrates 
each kind, but remember that many popular and enter- 
taining plays overlap as to kind. We are now trying to 
differentiate types with technical accuracy, not con- 
demning plays as worthless because they contain technical 
defects. They would be better plays technically had their 
authors observed more carefully these well-known laws — 
that is the viewpoint to take in trying to fulfill this assign- 
ment. 

5. After you have succeeded in completing this table as 



KINDS OF PLAYS 1 93 

well as possible, copy it in a note book, being careful to 
leave room for additions. 

6. In a considerable number of plays point out the 
passages embodying exposition, characterization, con- 
flict, situation, complication, increased suspense, crisis, 
contrast, connotative dialogue, humor of plot and of 
character, surprise, climax, denouement, and the expres- 
sion of the theme. 

7. It is now time to be about writing your full-length 
play. Reread this volume, note-book in hand. Decide 
on a theme or a foundation incident, outline your plot, 
sketch the grouping of characters, develop your char- 
acters by description for your own guidance, determine on 
their relative prominence, and assign the space to be given 
to each act. Before beginning the actual writing, however, 
study carefully the next two chapters and leave the 
material gathered for the longer piece of work until you 
shall have labored faithfully at the writing of several one- 
act plays, both adapted and original. Take plenty of 
time to revise and re-revise; study the stage-books of 
successful modern plays; and lay your work aside to cool. 



CHAPTER XVII 



THE ONE-ACT PLAY 

In both the short story and the play the space is narrow, and 
the action or episode must be complete in itself. In each case, 
therefore, you must find or invent scenes which put the greatest 
amount of the story into the least space : in more technical words, 
scenes which shall have the greatest possible significance. — J. 
H. Gardiner, The Forms of Prose Literature. 

I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. 
Keeping originality always in view — for he is false to himself 
who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable 
a source of interest — I say to myself, in the first place, "Of the 
innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, intellect, 
or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I on 
the present occasion choose?" — Edgar Allan Poe, The Phi- 
losophy of Composition, 

The one-act play is to the play of three, four, or five 
acts much as the short-story is to the novel. And, as there 
are novelists who fail at short-story writing, and vice versa, 
so there are dramatists qualified to deal in full-evenings' 
entertainments who are helpless in the realm of the 
playlet, and the reverse. 

Singleness of Effect and Economy 

It will be remembered that Edgar Allan Poe's theory 
of the short-story is summed up in the word "effect." 
The fiction writer labors from the very first sentence of 
his story to the very last with an eye single to the working 



THE ONE-ACT PLAY 1 95 

out of "a certain unique or single effect." "If his very 
initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, 
then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composi- 
tion there should be no word written, of which the ten- 
dency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established 
design." 

As much may be said for the one-act play. Within the 
limits of a half-hour or less — and oftener less — the author 
can produce by means of a single incident only a single 
effect, and to that purpose all else must be subordinated. 
Therefore if it is dangerous to mingle the genres in ordi- 
nary drama, it is next to fatal to do so in the one-act 
piece. 

After unity or singleness of purpose, economy is the most 
vital principle. Every moment between curtains is 
precious. There is little enough room for being leisurely 
in the long play, and certainly none at all in the playlet. 
For the same reason, there is no possibility of character 
development. All must be swiftly drawn — connoted — 
suggested. There is little time for exposition. A one-act 
play cannot succeed if much preliminary information is 
requisite to a comprehension of the plot. The initial 
situation must be set forth in the first few moments by 
means of broad and telling strokes. Here more than 
ever is there need of that perfect dialogue which both 
reveals character and tells the story. The mere de- 
tachable jest that ventures to impede either process 
must be extraordinary not to be excessive. In gen- 
eral, selection of details operates most effectively in the 
short play. 



196 THE TECHNIQUE OP PLAY WRITING 

A Desirable Vehicle for the Playwright 

Obviously the one-act piece offers the amateur author 
the easiest opportunity for testing his skill. The time and 
labor involved in its composition is perhaps less than a 
fourth or a fifth of that demanded for the four- or five-act 
drama. Beginners will do well to practice the various 
forms of composition in the brief sketch, before venturing 
upon the full-fledged play. There are numerous important 
collections of playlets available for study, including 
Sudermann's Morituri and the noteworthy work of the 
Irish dramatists. For one-act tragedy what can surpass 
Synge's superb " Riders to the Sea"? And the other 
genres are well exemplified in the work of Lady Gregory, 
of Mr. William Butler Yeats, and of their distinguished 
colleagues. 

On the other hand, the opportunities for securing the 
production of one-act pieces is, particularly in America, 
exceedingly limited. Our better vaudeville houses use a 
considerable number of sketches, a few of which are worth 
mentioning as drama — such, for instance, as Sir James 
M. Barrie's "The Twelve Pound Look," Mr. Austin 
Strong's "The Drums of Oude," or Mr. George Ade's 
"Mrs. Peckham's Carouse" — but most of which are 
either mere slapstick buffoonery or penny dreadfuls. 
Occasionally an American theatre follows the English 
custom and precedes a longer piece with a one-act play, 
or "curtain-raiser." Still more rarely there are pro- 
grammes of one-act dramas, and the example of the 
Grand Guignol at Paris has been followed in one or two 
instances. 



THE ONE-ACT PLAY 1 97 

Range, and General Qualities 

The horrible can be successfully utilized in the short 
play as in the short-story, whereas it is not adapted to the 
longer drama or the novel. "If it were done, when 'tis 
done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." 

In fact, the range of subject-matter open to the one-act 
play is almost unlimited. A taste of anything is often 
acceptable where a mouthful would be repellent. Cer- 
tainly whatever is presented should be given with the 
utmost emphasis. The conclusion, in particular, requires 
forcefulness; and nothing is more effective than a novel or 
unexpected climax, followed, as it should be, by a next-to- 
instantaneous denouement. The ironical termination of 
Mr. Booth Tarkington's "Beauty and the Jacobin" is a 
specimen of excellence in this respect. 

In "The Drums of Oude" the hero and the heroine are 
waiting in an Indian palace for the sound of a bugle which 
will tell them that the Sepoys are commencing a massacre. 
There is powder stored under the floor of the room, with 
a fuse attached. When tlie bugle call comes, the hero 
lights the fuse and holds the girl in his arms. Then they 
hear the pibrochs of a Scotch regiment to the rescue, and 
the fuse is extinguished at almost the last possible instant. 
Obviously, this little melodrama concentrates suspense 
and concludes with telling effect. 

In "The Man in Front," which is said to be the work of 
Mr. Alfred Sutro, a husband is informed by his wife that 
his friend is her lover. The husband is on the point of 
strangling the friend, but at the crucial moment the wife 
explains that her story was merely intended to make the 



I98 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

husband himself disprove his own theory that, in such an 
instance in real life, the lover would be in no special 
danger. In reality, her motive has been anger over her 
lover's announcement that he is affianced. In the end 
she offers him the whispered choice between remaining a 
live bachelor and suffering the consequences of her 
husband's rage. The lover promptly chooses the former 
alternative. 

In a playlet of similar basis, "The Woman Intervenes," 
by Mr. J. Hartley Manners, the lover is saved from the 
husband's wrath through the heroic offices of an old flame, 
who announces her engagement to the lover and so makes 
apparent his innocence. The means of suspense in both 
pieces is the same — that, indeed, which is at the bottom of 
the " eternal triangle " situation. In " The Man in Front," 
however, there is novelty in the expedient adopted by the 
woman to save her lover's life, with a consequent surprise 
which greatly heightens the effectiveness of the little play. 
Especially in vaudeville is this sort of final knock-out blow 
a sine qua non. 

Certainly there is even less excuse or hope for the con- 
ventional in the short drama than in the long. This 
naturally follows from the fact that in the playlet there 
is no opportunity to redeem triteness of plot with excel- 
lence of characterization. Mr. Richard Harding Davis is 
the author of a sketch entitled "Miss Civilization," which 
is a case in point. In this piece we encounter such ancient 
friends as the young woman in a dressing-gown, alone in a 
country house, entertaining three serio-comic burglars 
until rescuers arrive — whereupon, in accord with the 



THE ONE-ACT PLAY 1 99 

feminine tradition, she faints. One sees readily that she 
would have to be an extraordinarily accomplished and 
facile young person to entertain, not only her burglars, 
but also the audience during the considerable interval 
while she is waiting for help. Here characters and situa- 
tion alike are too antiquated to win sustained interest. 

The Ironical Playlet 

The one-act play has often been successfully employed 
in satire. In fact, brevity is the soul of irony. Prolonged 
ridicule soon loses its effectiveness: it is a seasoning which, 
unless used sparingly, dulls the palate. In any case, the 
successful dramatic satire is that which utilizes the dis- 
tinctive means of the drama, making its points concretely 
in illustrative action rather than in mere talk. One can 
find amusement in a trifle like Mr. William C. DeMille's 
"Food," which is scarcely more than a dialogue of clever 
exaggeration, but one's pleasure becomes indefinitely 
heightened at sight of the travesty figures, in Sir James 
M. Barrie's "A Slice of Life," really acting out his exposure 
of what is most absurd in our modern realistic problem 
drama. 

In Mr. Bernard Shaw's "How He Lied to Her Hus- 
band," the student will find much delightful and telling 
paradox in both the talk and the behavior of the 
"Candida" triangle in miniature, but little in the way of 
distinct characterization. 

That the one-act piece affords a large opportunity for 
dramatic portraiture, however, has been frequently proved. 
A recent example is Mr. Willard Mack's "Vindication," 



200 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

so excellently acted in vaudeville by Mr. Frank Keenan 
and his company. Except for some brief expository talk 
intended to reveal the impulsive warm-heartedness of the 
governor, the play is largely a sort of interrupted mono- 
logue, in the course of which the old Confederate soldier, 
waging a valiant and almost hopeless fight for his boy's 
good name, sets himself before us in all his weakness and 
strength, pitiful, laughable, lovable — as wholly "sympa- 
thetic" a figure as one could well imagine. Throughout, 
the little drama grips us with its spectacle of a brave, 
frank, shrewd struggle against big odds, as well as with its 
representation of a human soul. 

Questions and Exercises 

i. Outline, analyze, and criticise any one-act play you 
have seen. 

2. Solely for practice, and not with a view to produc- 
tion, map out a playlet from a well-known short-story. 

3. Invent two or three themes or situations for one- 
act plays. 

4. In the manner outlined on page 193 (Exercise 7, 
Chapter XVI) set about writing a one-act play. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SCENARIO MAKING AND MECHANICAL 
PROCESSES 

The scenario or skeleton is so manifestly the natural ground- 
work of a dramatic performance that the playwrights of the 
Italian commedia delV arte wrote nothing more than a scheme 
of scenes, and left the actors to do the rest. The same practice 
prevailed in early Elizabethan days, as one or two MS. "Plats," 
designed to be hung up in the wings, are extant to testify. — 
William Archer, Play-Making. 

Hand-script is difficult to read at best and irritates your very 
busy judge; the manuscript reader cannot give full attention 
to your work if the act of reading becomes laborious; uncon- 
sciously he regards hand-script as the sign manual of inex- 
perience Neatness counts for as much in a manuscript 

as do clean cuffs on a salesman. — J. Berg Esenwein, Writing 
the Short-Story. 

There is a relation between the one-act play and the 
scenario, if only a quantitative one. The scenario is in 
reality a condensed version of the longer play, partaking 
of the tabloid features of the playlet. Practice in writing 
either form should help in the other. Certainly the 
ability to devise a good outline is the natural precedent 
of successful play writing. It is an idle fear that taboos 
the scenario as restricting the author's and the characters' 
freedom in the development of the play. After the 
personages have been conceived and thrown together 
under the basic conditions, it can be a question of but a 



202 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

short time until the playwright will want to cast, in at 
least some definite, if tentative form, the sequence of 
events that issue from the combination. And even though 
he map out a detailed story, incident by incident, act by 
act, even though he include bits of dialogue or whole 
scenes, there is no valid reason why, should he later see 
fit, he should not revise the entire programme or rewrite 
every word of it. On the other hand, unless he have an 
extraordinarily retentive memory, he will find it difficult 
to bear in mind the many threads of conduct and character 
it is his business to weave together. 

In the preparation of the scenario for use in the 
actual writing of the play, every freedom is, of course, 
available. During the fine frenzy of invention, ideas 
will be jotted down pell-mell; and even when the first 
effort at the establishment of order takes place, the 
author will pay little heed to strict proportion and em- 
phasis. 

Having his environment and characters and the first 
indefinite intimations of the trend of the plot, he will 
probably begin by mapping out a scheme of time and 
place, which will depend upon or result in the preliminary 
division into acts and scenes. 

General Suggestions 

In planning the one-act play it will usually be best to 
employ only one scene and to make the time of action 
continuous. Latter-day realism demands that acting- 
time and actual time should be identical. The stage clock 
that strikes ten-thirty six minutes after it has struck ten 



SCENARIO MAKING AND MECHANICAL PROCESSES 203 

is likely to excite derision. Besides, in nearly every 
instance, a little ingenuity should suffice to synchronize 
with actuality the time of any single scene. 

Furthermore, in the drama to-day the author must take 
into consideration the events and changes that may 
have occurred during the periods intervening between the 
occasions represented in the different acts. Thus each 
act following the first will often require a brief exposition 
of its own, which will account for the entr'acte develop- 
ments, somewhat after the fashion of "Lennox and 
another Lord" and "Ross and an Old Man" in the inter- 
vals between Acts II and III and Acts III and IV of 
"Macbeth." Much, indeed, may occur off-stage in the 
drama — particularly scenes of violence — and be the more 
effective for the invisibility, always providing that there 
shall be omitted from actual representation no incident 
that is vitally illustrative, that has been deliberately pre- 
pared for, that is, indeed, a Sarceyan scene a faire, or 
scene-that-raw.s/-be-shown. 

Actual Scenario Making 

Once the rough plan is drawn up, the procedure of 
scenario making will continue apace with the process of 
thinking out the play. Unless one is a follower of that 
advanced "technique" which abhors rising and falling 
action as over-artificial, he will naturally build up to a 
climax. He will also prepare for a solution not devoid of 
suspense and surprise clear down to the final curtain. 
Of course, at every step the plot should be tested by the 
characters in strictest logic; and, wherever it exceeds or 



204 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

falls short of consistency and probability, it should be 
halted indefinitely for ruthless alteration. 

Eventually the working scenario, when it has been 
copied into legibility, will probably be a rather chaotic 
conglomerate of first and third person remarks. Here 
and there, in important scenes especially, there will be 
passages in dialogue; though, for the most part the out- 
line will be chiefly composed of narrative and description, 
probably in the historical present. In this form and at 
this stage the scenario offers almost every opportunity 
for that preliminary self-criticism which may be as pro- 
ductive of the greatest progress as it will be saving of 
hasty and ill-considered labor. In many cases, in fact, it 
will be found both expedient and profitable to put the 
work aside to "cool," in order that a fresher and a more 
detached and impersonal attitude may be adopted by the 
author later on, when he considers his project anew. 

Preparing the Scenario for the Producer 

As for the scenario which is intended to set forth the 
gist of a drama to one who may possibly be interested in 
its production, that is quite another matter. To begin 
with, it is written not before but after the actual composi- 
tion of the play itself. Generally it will aim to interest a 
busy and critical manager or actor, in the hope of arousing 
his desire to read the completed play. The theories in 
this regard seem to vary. One producer refuses to read a 
play by an unknown author until a scenario has been 
submitted; another will perhaps return the scenario with 
a statement to the effect that, while it appears interest- 



SCENARIO MAKING AND MECHANICAL PROCESSES 205 

ing, one can form no satisfactory estimate without a con- 
sideration of the entire play. Perhaps the only safe 
policy is to submit both play and scenario, and let the 
reader take his choice. 

At all events, this finished outline of a finished play 
requires care in its construction, if it is to interest and 
satisfy. To begin with, it must be brief. That means 
that the writer will have to exercise his sense of proportion 
in laying out his account of characters and incidents. He 
will have to blue-pencil the non-essential in all ruthless- 
ness. Yet, on the other hand, he must avoid a sketchy 
summary which produces vagueness and uncertainty in 
the reader. Moreover, really good ideas are valuable in 
the world of the theatre. Stated baldly in brief scenario 
form, they are perhaps more at the mercy of the unscrupu- 
lous than when they have been worked up into finished 
plays, or at least into complete outlines which represent 
plays written and capable of copyright. 

Above all, the scenario should be dramatic. Upon the 
manner in which one selects and emphasizes in the outline 
the significant moments of one's play will its general 
quality be judged. 

When a play has been finally completed to the full satis- 
faction of the author and, so far as possible, has had such 
reliable criticism as he may have been able to obtain, it is 
then put in form for submission to producers and for 
copyright. Of course, it is typewritten in duplicate. 
Three or even more carbon copies, in addition to the 
original, can readily be made. The size of manuscript 
sheets should be about eight by ten and a half, or perhaps 



206 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

eight and a half by eleven inches. The first copy should, 
if possible, be typed in two colors: all the dialogue should 
be, preferably, in blue or purple; all the stage directions, 
in red. In the carbon copies the stage directions should 
be underscored with red ink. Do not use a "copying 
ribbon" on the typewriter — the script smudges too 
easily and annoyingly stains the fingers of the reader. 

Stage Directions 

There are various plans for arranging directions and 
dialogue on the typewritten page. Most writers place the 
name of each character in the center of the line above his 
speech. Any direction concerning the speech is then 
placed in parenthesis on the line following. Stage direc- 
tions, by the way — except perhaps the description of the 
setting at the beginning of the scene — should all be 
enclosed in parentheses. 

A few writers adopt the plan of placing the name of the 
character, followed by any required direction, at the 
beginning of the first line of his speech. Name and 
direction are either typed or underscored in red; the 
speech, in purple, blue, black, or some other contrasting 
color. 

Longer stage directions than the mere phrase that char- 
acterizes a single speech are generally arranged in a sort of 
reversed paragraph, all the lines after the first, instead of 
the first, being indented, and typed or underscored in red. 
The left-hand margin for stage directions should be placed 
an inch or more to the right of the ordinary type-margin. 
The dialogue should be double spaced; but single spacing 



208 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

for the stage directions may serve as an additional means 
of convenient contrast. Appended to this volume will be 
found fac-simile pages of play manuscript that will illus- 
trate the most common usage. 

It should be borne in mind that the arrangement of the 
manuscript is for the benefit of the reader. In these days 
of multitudinous scripts and leisureless producers, many a 
play probably fails of a hearing because of a disorderly or 
confusing appearance. 

Each act of a play should be preceded by a description 
and a diagram of the setting. Both should be complete 
yet simple. The description notes the details of the mise 
en scene and their relative locations. The diagram still 
more definitely places them, indicating walls, doors, 
windows, entrances, and exterior and interior surroundings 
of every sort. The best usage requires that the name of 
each object be written on or beside the representation of 
the object in the diagram. 

The present-day movement is toward a simplification of 
stage terminology. The old manner of describing entrances 
as "Right first," "Right third," or "Left upper "—except 
for generally locating positions in exteriors — has passed 
with the passing of the old-fashioned wing-and-groove 
settings. Nowadays interiors are completely boxed in, 
the side walls being as solid, the side doors and windows 
as "practicable," as the rear ones, with usually a solid 
ceiling in place of the unrealistic "borders" of other days. 
The stage, however, still retains its general divisions, 
Right, Left, and Center, customarily designated as R, L, 
and C. "Right" and "Left" on the stage are, of course, 



SCENARIO MAKING AND MECHANICAL PROCESSES 200. 

the actor's right and left as he faces the audience. More- 
over, the terms "up stage" and "down stage" are still 
employed to indicate locations toward the rear and toward 
the front of the stage respectively. Similarly, one speaks 
of a chair as being "above" a table; though there is no 
earthly reason why "behind" should not be equally 
expressive — only, it is not used. 

However, an extensive knowledge of stage terminology 
is not actually requisite to the preparation of play manu- 
scripts. What is essential is that the author should 
thoroughly know the capabilities of the stage for producing 
or heightening the effects at which he aims. Flies, rigging- 
loft, dock, stage-cloth, tormentors, traps, drops, flats, 
set-pieces, wood-cuts, runs, bunch-lights, dimmers, 
foots, strips, olivettes, flood lights, spotlights, stage 
pockets, gridiron, lines, battens, tabs, jogs, etc., etc., are 
all characteristic and interesting terms; but, for the most 
part, they may be left to the players, more especially to 
the manager and the stage hands. At all events, the 
entire special terminology of the theatre can be learned 
by any ordinary mind with a half -hour's application. 
And this in spite of the fact that schools of acting and of 
play writing sometimes detail the subject in their cata- 
logues as though it were one of the full courses of instruc- 
tion. 

In writing the stage directions, it is customary to give 
at the first entrance of each character a brief description 
of his personal appearance and dress. This usually 
suffices for the entire play unless some marked change in 
an individual is to be indicated. Napoleon in the first 



2IO THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

act of "Madame Sans-Gene" is, naturally, a very differ- 
ent-looking person from Napoleon in the third act. 

At the beginning of the play there should be prefixed 
for convenient reference a list of the dramatis persona. 
The growing and rational usage is to name the characters 
in the order of their appearance. This list is, of course, 
to be printed in the programme. And it should include 
no more than the names of the personages, without 
explanation other than an occasional descriptive word. 
"Manson, a butler" and "William, his son" would 
perhaps not be out of place; but any detailed description 
or explanation here of a character, his business, or his 
relations to other characters, is nowadays interpreted as 
a confession that the play itself does not succeed in con- 
veying the necessary information as it should. In fact, 
the stage directions in the version of the play intended for 
the purposes of theatrical production should usually con- 
fine themselves, with regard to the characters, to the 
simplest essential account of the appearance and conduct 
of each personage. Monsieur Rostand may embalm his 
stage directions in the form of sonnets, but he does it, of 
course, with an eye on the reader of his play, not on the 
producer. When the professed naturalistic playwright 
adopts a similar custom, even though he write in prose, 
he is certainly guilty of an inconsistency. 

Questions and Exercises 

i. Revise the outline asked for in Exercise 6, Chapter 
XVI, in accordance with the instructions of this chapter. 



SCENARIO MAKING AND MECHANICAL PROCESSES 211 

2. For exercise, prepare a scenario of any modern play 
whose full text is available. 

3. Referring to Exercise 7, Chapter XVI, proceed with 
the writing of your long play. When you have finally 
done this work to the best of your ability, you should 
revise painstakingly according to the suggestions in the 
next chapter. 



CHAPTER XIX 

SELF-CRITICISM 

Others may tell him whether his work is good or bad; but 
only the author himself is in a position to know just what he was 
trying to do and how far short he has fallen of doing it. . . . 
Suppose, for instance, that an author's trouble is plot construc- 
tion. It may be easy to tell him where his plot is wrong and 
explain to him the principle that he has violated. But if he is 
to obtain any real and lasting profit, he must find out for him- 
self how to set the trouble right. Of course, you might con- 
struct the plot for him — but then it would be your plot and not 
his; you would be, not his teacher, but his collaborator; and 
his working out of your plot would almost surely result in bad 
work. — Frederic Taber Cooper, The Craftsmanship of Writing. 

The paramount danger is haste, with its resultant careless- 
ness. ... To exhibit the superficial aspects of a situation, to 
invent melodramatic incidents that obscure the solution, and 
to express half-baked views in place of thoughtful convictions, 
if indeed the duty of thinking out the problem be not dodged 
entirely, is so often quite sufficient to win applause and pelf, 
that it is perhaps a counsel of perfection to ask our playmakers, 
in the present infancy of their art, to do more. And yet, more 
they must do, in time, if our theatre is to be reckoned as a national 
asset ; the appeal to history settles that. — Richard Burton, The 
New American Drama. 

Before the dramatist takes his trusty typewriter in 
hand or — if he be so opulent — turns his play over to the 
typist, let him submit it to the most patient and searching 
process of criticism, beginning with the first fundamentals 
and not ending till he has taken into account the last 



SELF-CRITICISM 2 1 3 

details. Let him read his work carefully, read it aloud for 
the detection of cacophony and other faults still more 
vital. Preferably, first of all, he should lay the manuscript 
away for several months and try to forget it. Then he 
should assume and cultivate the most detached and 
impersonal attitude possible, putting himself imaginatively 
in the place not only of the average playgoer, but also of 
the manager and the actor. 

Testing the Amount of Dramatic Material 

The fundamental question that he should relentlessly 
ask concerning his work is, Is this drama? Or perhaps 
we should word it, How much of this is drama, and how 
much merely dialogue, narrative, descriptive, didactic? 
Too often a few bright lines and interesting situations that 
could readily be condensed into a vaudeville sketch are 
spread out thin over the surface of a whole evening's 
performance. Mr. George M. Cohan's "Broadway Jones" 
occupies four acts when it might as well have been con- 
fined to three. Mr. A. E. W. Mason's play, "Green 
Stockings," indeed, was thus condensed after its first 
production and for some time appeared in three acts 
while its original "paper" advertised it as "a four-act 
comedy." 

Naturally, few plays are drama from the very start. 
The exigencies of exposition usually require a preliminary 
narrative dialogue. Sometimes this extends throughout 
the entire first act. Too often it never ceases till the 
final curtain. Purely expository beginnings should be 
disguised by means of interesting movement, manoeuvres, 



214 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

and characterization. In other words, the exposition 
should be contrived so as to hold the attention of the spec- 
tator with the least possible, if any, voluntary effort on 
his part. It has previously been pointed out that the 
exposition may often be sprinkled along in small doses 
throughout the first act, or even throughout the entire 
play, instead of being massed at the beginning. 

Testing the Interest 

In reviewing his completed work, the playwright should 
be able to determine at exactly what point the emotional 
interest commences. And, if this point be long delayed, 
he should labor to Condense what precedes it, to shift the 
order of revelation, and by all available means to main- 
tain attention from the beginning of his play. 

Where does emotional — that is, dramatic — interest 
begin? Briefly, it starts with the struggle that underlies 
the play. The moment we see persons actually engage 
in a conflict, with each other, with society, with cir- 
cumstances, with fate, with themselves — in short, with 
any conceivable antagonist — that moment, being human, 
we are inspired with a feeling of suspense as to the out- 
come of the fight. We are curious as to who shall win, and 
— meanwhile — as to how the battle will be fought. It 
behooves the dramatist, therefore, to dispense with use- 
less preliminaries and let his antagonists come to the 
grapple with the least possible delay. 

Having determined the matter of the dramatic start, 
the self-criticising playwright will proceed to make 
certain that he has maintained the initial interest he has 



SELF-CRITICISM 21 5 

aroused. It is distinctly his business not to allow this 
emotional curiosity to lag. In fact, it is distinctly his 
business to be constantly heightening it toward his climax. 
One of the easiest faults to commit in play- writing is that 
of continually raising and dropping the tension from 
situation to situation, that is, of presenting a series of 
incidents, each dramatic in itself but not carrying over the 
final interest to what follows and proceeding ever up and 
up on higher levels to the summit. The prognosis for this 
broken-backed structure is usually most unfavorable. It 
should be avoided from the scenario stage. In any event, 
it should be carefully sought out in the final self-criticism 
and, when found, eliminated even at the cost of an entire 
recasting and rewriting of the play. 

This process of self-criticism further includes a deter- 
mination as to whether the structure itself is actually 
climacteric — always excepting plotless photography — and 
as to whether the climax — indeed, the plot in general — is 
illustrative of the theme. Then comes the question of the 
denouement. It is perhaps a natural tendency to con- 
struct plays so that the interest both culminates and con- 
cludes at the same moment. In such a case, however, an 
appended act merely to tell us that They were married and 
lived happily ever after, or that, having been definitely 
conquered, He gave up the struggle, will be a matter of 
supererogation. Final self-criticism must determine 
whether a sufficiently important part of the story has been 
left to be told in the last act. In fact, every act but the 
last should be concluded in such a way as to carry the 
spectator's interest over into what is to follow. Where 



2l6 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

this procedure is found to have been neglected, recasting 
is again obligatory. 

Testing the Characterization 

When these matters of story have been disposed of — 
or, rather, simultaneously with the process — the charac- 
terization and its relation to the plot must be painstakingly 
scrutinized. It is assumed that from the beginning every 
effort has been made to avoid the conventional. The 
playwright has modelled upon real life as he knows it, 
rather than upon the artificialities traditional to the 
theatre and fiction generally. It is more than possible, 
however, that, in the haste of composition, he has admitted 
to his work defects of probability and complete motiva- 
tion. He has made A, who is ordinarily a hard-headed, 
shrewd man of affairs, incredibly commit some careless- 
ness or omit some caution. In other words, everything has 
not always been taken into consideration when a char- 
acter has been made to say or do things. With the final 
self-criticism comes the playwright's opportunity to 
remedy any such possible oversights, and so to avoid the 
condemnation that is sure to descend upon even the most 
trivial improbabilities of conduct among his dramatis 
persona. Indeed, the more accurate and thorough the 
characterization, the more glaring will be the smallest 
inconsistency. 

There must be, then, every attention given to such 
matters of detail. The entrances and exits of the char- 
acters, for example, must be carefully, though not obtru- 
sively, motivated. It is repeatedly necessary to get this or 



SELF-CRITICISM 217 

that person on or off the stage; and in our day their 
comings and goings may not simply happen arbitrarily. 
In "As a Man Thinks," for example, Dr. Seelig comes 
home at tea-time and finds his daughter alone in the 
drawing-room. Several friends have been invited in — 
they are already late — and so we are prepared for their 
coming presently. Mrs. Clayton calls to speak with the 
doctor professionally; this gets her into the house; and 
then, in order that Vedah and her father may continue 
their confidential expository chat a little longer, Mrs. 
Clayton's desire to see Mrs. Seelig, who is upstairs, gets 
the former off the stage again. Later, to leave Vedah and 
Burrill alone together — after the apparently casual, but 
of course carefully calculated announcement by her 
father of her engagement to De Lota — Dr. Seelig carries 
the two vases into the library. And, a short time after- 
ward — to give De Lota and Elinor an opportunity for con- 
fidential dialogue — Dr. Seelig calls to Vedah and Burrill 
to come to him in the library. 

So it goes. People do not drop in by chance or disappear 
without reason: every movement is rationalized — made 
the effect of an obvious, though never obtrusive cause. 

Testing the Play for Action 

And always what must be borne steadily in mind is the 
importance of action. A play is a play, and not merely a 
narrative, by virtue of this element alone. You have a 
theme: it must be shown in action. You have a story: it 
must be related in action. You have characters: they 
must be portrayed in action. Whatever there is in your 



2l8 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

drama that is worth while must be illustrated concretely 
by things done, and not merely said. 

For an example consider Mr. Rudolf Besier's "Don" 
in contrast with Mr. George Bernard Shaw's "Fanny's 
First Play." At bottom, the theme of both is the same: 
the helplessness of middle-class respectability in the face 
of the unconventional. But "Don" illustrates this 
problem in terms of concrete action, while the other piece 
presents it chiefly in the form of debate. In fact, with 
Mr. Shaw there is so much scintillant dialogue that there 
is no time left for the doing of things. When we eliminate 
this verbal felicity and substitute "the great realities of 
our modern life — meaning, apparently," as Mr. William 
Winter puts it, "photographs of the coal-scuttle, and 
other such tremendous facts of actual, everyday exist- 
ence," we no longer draw the playgoer's attention away 
from the fundamental lack of action. Indeed, "Fanny's 
First Play," as a play, was only what might have been 
expected of so youthful an amateur as Fanny, and conse- 
quently had to be eked out not only with Shavian girdings at 
middle-class morality, but also with the resurrected device 
of a satirical prologue and epilogue forestalling the critics. 1 

Testing the Play for Finish 

Finally, there will remain in this process of self-criticism, 
the ultimate condensation and polishing of the dialogue, 

1 Much the same sort of comparison might profitably be made 
between Mr. Shaw's "Pygmalion" and Mr. Hubert Henry 
Davies's "Outcast." In the matter of structure, however, 
"Don" surpasses "Outcast," and "Pygmalion" is better than 
"Fanny's First Play." 



SELF-CRITICISM 210. 

and even of the stage directions. It seems almost endlessly 
possible to eliminate superfluous words and phrases and 
to improve diction and form. Of course, all must be done 
with an eye single — in the realistic drama — to that com- 
pact and selective kind of speech which yet gives the illu- 
sion of the ordinary. 

Above all, the dialogue must be kept consistent with 
the characterization; and the last test, again, will deter- 
mine whether anybody has been made to say what he 
would not probably have said in real life. 

After everything possible seems to have been done by 
way of improvement, a final reading aloud will invariably 
discover unguessed imperfections. In fact, it is doubtful 
whether any playwright who types his own manuscripts 
ever does so without numerous pauses to reconstruct a 
line or to delete a phrase. 

Important General Tests 

There are, of course, many special considerations other 
than those mentioned that must enter into the process of 
final self-criticism. Authors will perhaps ask themselves 
whether they have provided the sort of leading role that 
will appeal to the particular player or manager that it is 
hoped to interest; whether opportunity has been pro- 
vided for necessary changes of costume; whether the 
scenes and the time-scheme have been devised so as to 
give occasion for a desirable sartorial display in certain 
types of drama; whether general ease and inexpensiveness 
of production have been made possible — in fact, scores of 
eminently practical considerations will come to mind. 



220 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

There is the important matter of the unity of tone, 
since plays, as has been seen, occasionally fail through a 
shifting viewpoint that fatally confuses the spectator. 
Then there is the whole problem of preparation, of advance 
information and suggestion that arouses suspense and 
makes intelligible what occurs later. And finally, there 
is the question of repetition and the rigid deletion of what 
has perchance been twice told to no special advantage. 

Digest of Dramatic Rules 

Perhaps the beginner will be stimulated by some of the 
various collections of miscellaneous rules for dramatic 
composition. 

He will at least remember Dumas' "Let your first act 
be clear, your last act brief, and the whole interesting," 
and Wilkie Collins's famous "Make 'em laugh; make 
'em weep; make 'em wait." For the rest, here are some 
fragments of advice from many sources, which the ama- 
teur dramatist may take for what they are worth: 

i. Get a good, simple story. 

2. Let it be human and appeal to all kinds of people, 
the gallery as well as the stalls. 

3. Do not let too many important things have 
"happened" before the rise of the curtain. 

4. Center your interest on one or two people. 

5. The fewer characters the better. 

6. The fewer settings the better. 

7. Do not change your scene during an act. 

8. Do not have more than four acts. 



SELF-CRITICISM 221 

9. Let there be between eighteen and thirty-five type- 
written pages to the act. 

10. Mere topics of the hour are dangerous themes, 
since by the time plays are read and produced their 
subject-matter is likely to be stale. Themes universal 
and eternal, yet timely, are the ones that are most worth 
while. 

n. To-day is the best time to write about; where you 
live, the likeliest place. 

12. Read the master playwrights of to-day: — Suder- 
mann, Pinero, Thomas, Hervieu, Rostand — these will do 
to start with. 

13. Technique — as in all the arts — must be mastered 
and forgotten. It must be at the finger-tips, like the 
mechanics of piano-playing. 

14. "The exit of each character must bear the same 
relation to him that the curtain bears to the plot. Every 
time a man leaves the stage, the audience should wonder 
what he is going to do and what effect it will have on his 
next appearance." 

15. See that the play is always moving straight toward 
its goal: divagation is usually death. 

16. Plays that are "enlarged fifth acts," — that is, 
that present only the culminating scenes of the story — 
are usually the swiftest and the most compact. 

17. Express as much as possible in pantomime, gesture, 
and facial play: by so doing you take the audience into 
collaboration and thus tickle its vanity. It is worth 
while to develop the significant "business" for the player. 



222 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

1 8. If it is consistent with story and characters, give 
the women opportunities to dress — and more than once. 

19. Remember that interior settings are usually less 
expensive than exteriors. Moreover, entrances and exits 
are more clear-cut, definite, and effective in interiors. 

20. Work to bring about a logical conclusion dimly 
foreseen and ardently desired, by surprising yet thor- 
oughly convincing means. 

21. "The essence of the play's entertainment is 
surprise — the pleasant shock which breaks the crust of 
habitual thought in which each spectator is imprisoned 
and releases him into a new and more spacious world." 

22. Base all your work ultimately upon Spencer's 
principle of the economy of attention. 

23. Strive to people situation with character and to 
make situation significant as an opportunity for character 
to express itself. Character should always dominate 
situation. Character is destiny. 

24. Avoid the didactic: — a play should point its own 
moral without the aid of a raisonneur. 

25. Settings should be characteristic and suggestive of 
the persons and the theme of the play. The first setting 
ought, in some measure, to strike the keynote. 

26. Ponder Ibsen's avowed purpose in play- writing: — 
to evoke "the sensation of having lived through a passage 
of actual life." 

27. Remember proportion: the minor, however inter- 
esting per se, is pernicious when it distracts attention from 
the major matter. 



SELF-CRITICISM 223 

28. "Plays aren't written; they're rewritten." "It's 
a wise author that knows his own play on its first night." 

29. "In the matter of local color, of atmosphere, the 
playwright cannot spend too much pains. He must be 
effective in all these superficial things." 

30. The first rule of the stage, as of oratory, is — to 
paraphrase Danton — De faction, encore de faction, 
toujours de faction. The constant desire of the spectator 
is to see something happen. 

"These few precepts" it will hardly be necessary to 
analyze or discuss. For the most part, they are repetitive 
of what has already, and more than once, been counselled 
in detail. Some of them, of course, merely repeat each 
other. Others challenge instant antagonism. They are 
drawn, as was said, from various sources and are offered 
simply with the thought that, as they stand, they may 
stimulate helpful reflection. 

Finally, perhaps the most vital rule that could be 
phrased would be Avoid haste. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero 
declares that one play a year is enough. Monsieur Edmond 
Rostand takes as long as nine years — at least in the case 
of "Chantecler." Whatever else he produces, we may be 
sure, will not lack maturest consideration. Shakespeare 
wrote his three dozen dramas, in addition to his other 
works, in about twenty-five years. 

" 'Stop Thief,' " says Mr. George M. Cohan, 1 "was 
one of the most logical, smooth-running farces ever pro- 
duced on any stage. Moore rewrote it six times before it 

1 In the Green Book Magazine, April, 1915. 



224 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

was approved by us. He must have written at least five 
entirely new plays before we accepted 'Stop Thief;' but 
he is one of the few playwrights who work on the theory 
that the other fellow is likely to have some ideas, and that 
the author does not know everything. He is willing to 
take advice and suggestions — and for that reason, if for 
no other, I believe he will prove a greater success, and 
eventually become a greater craftsman, than those who 
will not. 

"Reizenstein threw away — not literally, of course — the 
first manuscript of 'On Trial.' ... I told Reizenstein 
to write an entirely different story into his scenes, and in 
three or four weeks he came back with the play as it was 
later produced. . . . Had Reizenstein been an older and 
accepted playwright, he might have turned up his nose 
when we asked him to rewrite what some of them choose 
to call their 'soul's blood.' . . . McHugh literally ripped 
the manuscript [of "Officer 666"] to pieces, changing it 
here, there, and everywhere, and then changing it again, 
until the play as produced would never have been recog- 
nized as the original." 

Of course, many playwrights have won success while 
working at incredibly high speed. "La Dame aux Came- 
lias was composed in eight days, to anticipate a pirated 
version of the novel from which it was taken. Dion Bouci- 
cault wrote four hundred plays in fifty years, one piece 
having been composed in forty-eight hours. Lope de 
Vega wrote dramas at the rate of forty-four a year until 
he had become responsible for more than two thousand 
titles. 



SELF-CRITICISM 225 

On the other hand, when Mr. Edward Sheldon produces 
three plays in a single season, and only one of them is 
really worth while, the fact appears significant. Mr. 
Augustus Thomas, too, apparently suffers now and then 
by haste, as "Mere Man" and "The Model," to say 
nothing of a few other plays, would seem to indicate; 
and the late Clyde Fitch gave the impression of owing 
most of his deficiencies to the speed with which he turned 
out his frequently inconsequential trifles of entertainment. 
After all, it is much easier to scribble off new pieces at 
white heat than it is to subject a single drama to the long 
and relentless pressure of hard thinking that such an 
enterprise deserves and requires. As for success, one 
good play will certainly land its author high above what 
he could gain from a dozen comparative failures. 

Questions and Exercises 

1. Apply the tests of this chapter to the text of some 
modern play. What are your conclusions, specifically? 

2. Frankly say what defects you find in your own 
manuscripts, after self-criticism. 

3. Indicate which points you think may be amended, 
and how. 



CHAPTER XX 



PLACING THE PLAY 

Good plays are always wanted, and the anxiety to get hold of 
them is very great, the multiplicity of theatres increasing the 
demand. But is it to be wondered at, that a busy and harassed 
manager is not in a position to give serious thought to the 
enormous mass of written or printed matter that is being per- 
petually brought under his notice? ... It is a marvel that 
managers are as patient as they are, when one thinks of the 
absolute rubbish that is constantly asking their suffrages. . . . 
Going "through the mill" is not a pleasant operation, but it is 
the only way to get associated with the grist. — Frank Archer, 
How to Write a Good Play. 

Don't ever send in a play without first having obtained permis- 
sion to do so. Don't, when it is in, worry the manager about it 
too soon or too often. Don't write to the papers about your 
ill-treatment. . . . Do not argue with managers, but accept 
their decisions, and appear to be impressed with, and grateful 
for, their views. ... Be guided by common sense in your 
tactics. Do not send drawing-room comedy to the Adelphi, and 
sensational melodrama to Terry's. Do not try to talk Mr. Toole 
over into playing a heavy, emotional drama, because you will 
only be wasting your own valuable time, to say nothing of that 
versatile comedian's. . . . Send one-part plays to the actors 
or actresses that they would best suit. . . . Mind, however, 
that the play is a one-part play; actors do not relish rivalry. 
And take care that the part suits your man all through. — Play- 
writing: a Handbook for. Would-be Dramatic Authors (By "A 
Dramatist.") 

And after you have performed the Herculean labors 
involved in the writing, criticising, revising, and copying 



PLACING THE PLAY 227 

of your play, you find that your work has only just begun! 
Next you have to consider the task of getting the play 
"placed." 

For achieving this highly desirable consummation — 
since "no man is a recognized dramatist till he is pro- 
duced" — there are various procedures. You may mail 
your play to a manager, to a "star," or to a play agent; 
or you may carry the manuscript in person. 

What happens to plays mailed or expressed to managers? 

That depends. Write to the average producer, and he 
will reply that, if you will send him your play, he will read 
it as soon as possible. If you call on the manager yourself 
— and succeed in seeing him — he is likely to assure you of 
just that much. One producer frankly asserts that, since 
not one play out of a thousand ordinarily received is worth 
looking into, he is much too busy a man to read plays 
against such odds. To attract his attention the author 
must have first gained the interest of some noted actor, or 
must submit a record of some successful minor production. 

Most theatrical firms employ play-readers, who perhaps 
occasionally recommend promising manuscripts for pro- 
duction. It is quite true, however, that though, according 
to recurrent newspaper interviews, most managers are 
actually on the lookout for undiscovered dramatists, they 
often seem unwilling to seek these elusive wheat-grains in 
the oceans of chaff which flow in via the post office. 

Copyrighting the Play 

Playwrights are frequently warned in more or less direct 
language that in submitting manuscripts indiscriminately 



228 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

they run the risk of losing the ideas of their plays, when 
novel, if not the plays entire. Of course, modern copy- 
right arrangements insure a certain amount of protection. 
By filling out a blank and sending it with one dollar, a 
ten-cent revenue stamp, and a carbon copy of an original 
play to the Register of Copyrights at Washington, the 
author can obtain a certificate of copyright good for 
twenty-eight years. This certificate, together with 
evidence that a producer has had access to a copy of the 
play, makes a basis for a damage suit against the producer, 
when he brings out under another title a strikingly similar 
piece. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that many 
managers carefully avoid mentioning the title of any play 
in their letters: "I have received your play" they will 
write, or "I have read your play;" but they rarely make 
any further identification. Anyhow, it is notorious that 
producers are often harassed and victimized in the matter 
of plagiary accusations. 

Manager and Actor 

The experience in submitting plays to managers, if only 
because of the delay, is usually disheartening. Sooner or 
later, the author is tempted to try the play broker. Some 
of these agents are reliable. If they like a play, they will 
say so; and sometimes they will succeed in placing it for 
production. Then they will charge a commission of ten 
per cent, of the author's profits, which is a very reasonable 
fee indeed, since the agent looks after the drawing of con- 
tracts, the collection of royalties, and all other necessary 
business. However, some play brokers also have a habit 



PLACING THE PLAY 229 

of storing manuscripts away indefinitely, even after 
having warmly approved them. 

There remains the actor. If he reads your play and 
becomes interested in it, he will of course be likely to urge 
its production by his manager. But actors, too, are busy 
people. They often carry trunkfuls of manuscripts about 
with them and find time to read none. And as a rule, 
when the actor glances over a play and finds in it no part 
suited to himself, his interest in it as a working possibility 
ceases. 

The process of seeing a manager usually includes making 
an appointment by letter, waiting long beyond the hour 
named, accepting rebuffs from the Napoleonic office-boy, 
and at last being dismissed by the producer himself with 
scant encouragement. Play brokers can generally be seen 
with less delay. In the event of an interview, few man- 
agers, actors, or agents will do more than take a manu- 
script and promise to read it at some indefinite future date. 
And personal visits rarely accomplish more than do 
courteous letters toward securing immediate action. 
Obviously, watchful waiting is usually the only practicable 
policy for the beginner. 

Producers' promises to read, doubtless for the most part 
made in good faith, are often not fulfilled before the 
author's patience has become exhausted. One rising 
Western manager, for example, agreed to consider an 
amateur's manuscript. After it had been in his office for 
some months, he replied to an inquiry that he was much 
interested in the play and would in all probability pro- 
duce it. At the end of eighteen months, the author 



230 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

requested its return. Meanwhile, the manager had 
written some fifteen letters of excuse for postponement, 
while he was repeatedly announcing through the press 
the acquisition of new pieces, and his desire to consider 
manuscripts from " unknown" authors. 

In the present state of vaudeville, except for the rare 
one-act play theatres, there are almost no producing 
managers, as in the "legitimate," to whom playlets may 
to any purpose be submitted. Few if any booking offices 
or other business enterprises connected with the variety 
stage will consider unsolicited manuscripts with a view to 
production. There are, however, play brokers who fre- 
quently place sketches; and vaudeville actors are usually 
on the lookout for next year's " vehicle." One means of 
getting a sketch seriously considered for vaudeville is to 
arrange for a " try-out" that the booking office reviewers 
may witness. This, of course, is beyond the possibilities 
of the average author. 

And so it goes. Nevertheless, the self-confident pseudo- 
dramatist will not allow even an apparently endless series 
of rebuffs utterly to dishearten him. The prize is no 
trivial one; and, anyhow, a good fight is its own reward. 
There are many interesting stories of frequently rejected 
plays that eventually won renown for their authors. 
Mr. Augustin MacHugh, for example, is quoted as saying 
that in at least three offices his farce, " Officer 666," was 
never taken from its wrappings. 

The secret history of many latter-day stage successes 
would, indeed, make interesting reading, if all the facts 
were available. Certainly, if rumors are to be credited, 



PLACING THE PLAY 23 1 

"The Great Divide," "The Witching Hour," "My Friend 
from India," and "Paid in Full" — not to mention dozens 
of others — would each serve as the subject of a prominent 
chapter, as "D'Arcy of the Guards" has done for a whole 
book. 

Meanwhile, from time to time unheard-of playwrights 
do become known through the submission of manuscripts, 
by mail or in person, to producers, brokers, and actors. 
Moreover, there remains at least one other possible open- 
ing, and that is the stock company. 

The Stock Company Opening 

Nearly every American city of considerable size now 
has its resident troupe of players. Many of these com- 
panies occasionally vary their repertoire of standard 
successes with "try-outs" of new plays. A proved play 
is, of course, a valuable property; and resident stock 
managers are often willing to wade through piles of 
manuscripts in the hope of securing a promising drama. 
Plays are generally produced by stock companies upon 
terms providing for a joint ownership of future rights, 
three-fourths or two-thirds accruing to the author. The 
manager, having demonstrated the worth of the play in 
stock, endeavors to place it with some regular producer 
and naturally in this effort enjoys unusual opportunities. 

From time to time stock managers, newspapers, and 
various organizations conduct contests, in which the 
prize is a production of the winning play. These contests 
have frequently resulted in bringing promising work to 
the producer's attention. All in all, the stock companies 



232 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

probably offer the most satisfactory opportunity, though 
a limited one, for the young writer seeking a hearing. 

Terms of Contract 

When the play has at last been accepted by the metro- 
politan manager, there arises the question of the terms of 
the contract. Most producers have regular forms, which 
they submit to new authors with but slight variations. 
Some managers will offer to buy a play outright, for, say, 
five hundred or a thousand dollars. Others will stipulate 
that after the payment of fifteen or twenty thousand 
dollars royalty the author shall relinquish all proprietary 
rights in the play. Ordinarily, however, the terms of the 
contract give the new author from three to five per cent, 
of the gross receipts, with perhaps a sliding scale, following 
an initial success, of five per cent, on the first four thousand 
dollars a week; seven and a half per cent, on the next 
two or three thousand; and ten per cent, on all additional 
receipts. Naturally, dramatists of established fame get 
more generous terms. When a play is accepted, even 
from a beginner, an advance royalty of from two hundred 
and fifty to a thousand dollars is often paid. 

The contract in any case should stipulate that the play 
is to be produced within a given time limit — six months 
or a year from date. If possible, the manager should be 
bound to give a definite number of performances each 
year to retain his control of the piece; and details, such 
as weekly box office statements and payments of royalty, 
manuscript changes, and the ownership of novelization, 
foreign, and stock rights, should be included in the agree- 



PLACING THE PLAY 233 

ment. However, in view of the manifold difficulties of 
securing even so much as a hearing, the unknown author 
may well be willing to accept any honorable terms pro- 
posed. 

The Play as a Collaboration 

After the acceptance and the contract, there remains 
what many authors regard as the hardest work of all — 
the production. The beginner can, of course, leave his 
manuscript to the producer and concern himself with it 
no further: indeed, it is more than likely that he will be 
fully urged so to do. However, he may have insisted on 
a clause in the contract giving him the right to participate 
in such changes as are deemed necessary. And in any 
event, he knows he must stand or fall by the play as it is 
performed, rather than as he wrote it. 

A well-known novelist, who has produced a single piece 
for the stage, is quoted as saying, "The reason that I do 
not want to write another play is simply that I want 
anything to which my name is attached to be wholly and 
entirely mine." On the other hand, it must be remembered 
that an acted play is always a collaboration, not only of 
author and actors, but also of producer and audience. 
All the possibilities in any one manuscript are rarely 
foreseen by any one person, not even by the author. 
And, while some plays have been spoiled through bungling 
manipulation at the hands of the incompetent, many 
others have been virtually infused with the breath of life 
through skilful and experienced production. "It's a wise 
author that knows his own play when it is acted;" and 



234 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

certainly a foolish author that complains when his half- 
baked work has really been lifted out of mediocrity. 

The amateur dramatist who has finished, typed, and 
copyrighted a new play should watch the columns of the 
newspapers and especially of the higher class periodicals 
devoted to the stage or to the writing craft, for announce- 
ments of play-reading bureaus established by managers, 
of prize contests of various kinds, of the immediate wants 
of noted actors, and of such opportunities as are afforded 
by the semi-professional playhouses or companies. If he 
feels confident that his drama is adapted to the needs and 
abilities of some particular "star," the author should 
address the player, usually by letter, asking permission 
to submit his manuscript. In dealing with play brokers, 
it is generally best to select those of established reputation. 
And wherever possible, the beginner should endeavor to 
interest in his work the manager of the local stock com- 
pany. 

Above all, throughout the often trying experiences of 
the unknown author seeking to "place" his play, let him 
resolutely keep a stiff upper lip in the earnest conviction 
that sooner or later such merit as his work possesses 
must be recognized. 



APPENDIX A 

SPECIMEN SCENARIO 

CYRANO DE BERGERAC 

An Heroic Comedy in Five Acts 

By Edmond Rostand 

Act I 

The interior of the Hotel de Bourgogne in 1640. The 
public begins to assemble for the play. Soldiers refuse to 
pay; lackeys gamble; musketeers flirt with flower-girls; 
bourgeois peer about for notables; spectators eat and 
drink; cavaliers fence; pages play pranks; a pickpocket 
instructs his young pupils; a barmaid vends beverages; 
foppish noblemen arrive late. 

Ligniere, a drunkard, brings in Christian de Neuvillette, 
a handsome youth lately come to Paris, who seeks here the 
fair unknown with whom he has fallen in love. As the 
precieuses appear in the galleries, Christian scans their 
faces, but in vain. 

Ragueneau, a pastry-cook and poet, arriving, asks 
anxiously after Cyrano, who has forbidden Montfleury, 
the actor billed for this performance, to appear on the 
stage during a month. Several spectators ask who this 
redoubtable Cyrano is, and Ragueneau, aided by the 
serious-minded Le Bret, another of Bergerac's friends, 



236 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

makes an extended reply. Cyrano — poet, duellist, physi- 
cist, musician — is a bizarre, extravagant, fantastic fellow 
with a nose of extraordinary size and a sword which 
menaces all who dare remark on his personal appear- 
ance. 

Christian's inamorata appears in a box. Ligniere 
explains to him that she is Roxane, an ultra-precieuse and 
a cousin of Cyrano. With her is the Comte de Guiche, 
who is enamored of her and would force her to wed a sorry 
and complaisant fellow, the Vicomte de Valvert. Ligniere 
himself has exposed the nefarious project in a ballad which 
must have greatly enraged the comte. Christian instantly 
declares he will seek out Valvert and challenge him. 
However, the youth remains in rapt admiration of Roxane, 
who returns his gaze, while Ligniere staggers off to a 
tavern. 

Guiche, descending from the gallery, calls one of his 
flattering followers "Valvert." Christian feels in his 
pocket for a glove, but finds instead a pickpocket's hand. 
The thief buys his pardon by revealing that a nobleman, 
angered by a ballad of Ligniere's, has posted a hun- 
dred cutthroats to assassinate the drunkard on his way 
home. Honor-bound, Christian hurries forth to warn 
Ligniere. 

The play — La Clorise — begins in the midst of general 
excitement. The Falstafnan Montfleury appears and 
recites three lines of the opening speech. Then a voice 
exclaims from the pit, "Rascal! Did I not forbid you to 
show your face here for a month? " 

The audience is amazed. Montfleury hesitates. Cy- 



APPENDICES 



237 



rano, brandishing a cane, rises above the throng, stand- 
ing on a chair, his mustache bristling, his nose terrible 
to behold. The indignant spectators side with the actor. 
Cyrano offers to fight the whole audience one by one. His 
challenge not accepted, he causes Montrleury, that full 
moon, to eclipse. When other actors complain of their 
loss, Cyrano tosses them a purse of gold. 

At the suggestion of Guiche, Valvert seeks to insult 
Cyrano, who, noting the vicomte's dulness, suggests a 
score of witty remarks that might be made regarding his 
own immense nose. The throng is delighted: this Gascon 
is better than a play. Cyrano overwhelms Valvert, 
answering the latter's ultimate taunt — "Poet!" — by 
fighting a duel with the vicomte, and at the same time 
composing an appropriate ballade. At the end of the 
envoi Valvert is wounded, and his friends carry him off. 

Cyrano is acclaimed on all sides. After the admiring 
spectators have departed, in explaining his conduct to his 
anxious friend Le Bret, the Gascon confesses that he is in 
love — hopelessly, of course, because of his nose — with 
Roxane. Le Bret encourages him; and when the lady's 
duenna comes to make an appointment for her with 
Cyrano, the latter is much elated. 

Ligniere, quite drunk, is brought in. He tells of the 
warning he has had in a note left for him at a tavern by 
Christian. Cyrano, in his elation, eagerly seizes the 
opportunity. He forms a procession of actors and officers 
and marches forth at the head of it to do battle single- 
handed with the hundred men posted to assassinate 
Ligniere, his friend. 



238 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

ACT II 

The kitchen of Ragueneau's pastry shop. The poet- 
cook amusingly mixes his two arts, as he directs his 
apprentices. Cyrano comes to keep his appointment here 
with Roxane. While waiting he composes a love letter to 
her and takes occasion to warn the wife of Ragueneau 
against the gallantry of the tall musketeer who is flirting 
with her. 

Roxane arrives. With tarts and cream puffs Cyrano 
bribes the duenna to leave them alone together. Roxane 
thanks him for ridding her of Valvert and tenderly binds 
up her cousin's wounded hand. She confesses that she 
is in love with a man who does not guess it, but who shall 
soon be told. Cyrano's hopes are inspired; but when she 
describes her hero as handsome, their knell is, of course, rung. 

It is Christian that Roxane loves. She knows nothing 
of him except that he belongs to Cyrano's company, the 
Cadets of Gascony. She feels certain the youth must be 
as witty as he is handsome; if it should turn out other- 
wise, she — the precieuse — would die of it. She leaves her 
cousin proudly dissimulating his broken heart, after he 
has given his promise to protect her lover from duels. 

The cadets come with a crowd eager to hear the account 
of Cyrano's fight with the hundred men. At his captain's 
request, Bergerac controls his feelings and improvises a 
set of triolets by way of presentation of his comrades to 
Guiche. The latter patronizes Cyrano, whose resent- 
ment is instantaneous and bitter. One of the cadets hav- 
ing brought a collection of battered hats left behind by 
the ruffians dispersed the night before, Bergerac flings 



APPENDICES 239 

them at the feet of the comte, the cutthroats' employer, 
who departs with his followers in a rage. 

Le Bret expostulates with Cyrano for his rashness in 
neglecting his opportunities; but Bergerac, scornfully 
asserting his independence, repudiates the compromises 
wherewith courtiers are wont to rise. His friend at length 
understands that this bitterness is largely due to the fact 
that Roxane does not love him. 

Christian, as a new-comer to the company of the cadets, 
is informed by them of the danger of making the slightest 
reference to their comrade's huge nose. The youth, against 
whose courage insinuations have been made, deliberately 
insults Bergerac during the latter's recital of his feat of 
arms of the previous night. Cyrano is about to hurl him- 
self upon his insulter, when for the first time he learns the 
latter's identity. Bergerac orders all but Christian from 
the room. The cadets go, convinced that they have seen 
the last of the young man. 

When the two rivals are left alone, Cyrano astounds 
Christian by saying, " Embrace me. You are brave. I am 
her brother — Roxane's — at least, her fraternal cousin. 
She has told me all ! " Informed that the precieuse expects 
a letter from him that very evening, Christian sadly con- 
fesses his inability to compose one that will satisfy her 
fastidious tastes. Cyrano, wishing only that he had, to 
express his soul, such a handsome interpreter, strikes a 
bargain with the youth: Christian is to supply the physical 
exterior, Bergerac the essential love eloquence. Between 
them they will make a real hero of romance. Producing 
the love letter he has just written, Cyrano explains that 



240 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

poets always have such unaddressed epistles about them 
and gives it to the delighted youth to send to Roxane. 
The cadets, venturing to return, are amazed to find the 
two antagonists in each other's arms. 

The immediate inference is that the terrible Gascon has 
been tamed. The tall musketeer, against whom Bergerac 
has warned Ragueneau's wife, concludes that one may 
now speak with impunity to Cyrano about his nose. 
Calling the woman to witness, the gallant approaches 
Bergerac, sniffing affectedly. "What a surprising odor!" 
he exclaims. "But you, sir, surely must have noticed it? 
What is it that I smell here? " And Cyrano, punning on a 
word that means both a blow of the hand and the gilli- 
flower, replies, as he slaps the tall musketeer's face, 
"La giro flee!" 

Act III 

An open place before the house of Roxane; a balcony, 
a garden, trees. The knocker of the house opposite is 
swathed in linen, like a sore thumb. Inside, the duenna 
tells Ragueneau, the precieuses have gathered to listen to 
a "Discourse on the Tender." 

Cyrano appears, singing, followed by two pages strum- 
ming theorbos. He is instructing them in their art. He 
tells Roxane how he has obtained their services as the 
result of a wager. Weary of them, he sends them to sere- 
nade Montfleury, commanding them to play a long time — 
and out of tune. When Roxane overflows with praise of 
the wit and eloquence of Christian's letters, Cyrano makes 
light of them. 



APPENDICES 241 

Guiche comes, and Bergerac conceals himself within 
the house. The comte is about to depart with an army 
to relieve the city of Arras, which is besieged by the 
Spaniards. She artfully persuades him that he can best 
revenge himself on her boastful cousin by leaving the 
latter's company behind. 

When the comte has gone, Roxane bids Bergerac detain 
Christian, should the latter arrive while she is in the house 
opposite. For the first time the youth in person is to 
speak to her of love this evening. 

Cyrano calls Christian, who has been waiting outside, 
and bids him prepare his memory for the eloquence he is 
to offer Roxane. However, Christian declares he will 
borrow his words no longer, but will speak for himself. 
Roxane abruptly reappears, and Bergerac leaves them. 

As night is falling, the precieuse sits beside her young 
lover and bids him speak to her in the Euphuistic strain 
which she adores, and in which the letters written by 
Cyrano have been couched. But Christian can only 
exclaim bluntly, "I love you," and she presently dismisses 
him in disappointment. " When you lose your eloquence," 
she asserts, "you displease me as much as if you had 
become ugly." 

Christian in despair summons Bergerac and implores 
his aid. When Roxane appears in the balcony, Cyrano 
first whispers to the youth the words of passion which 
the latter repeats. Presently, taking Christian's place, 
in the darkness, the Gascon woos his enraptured cousin 
in the poetic style she so highly values. When she at 
length suggests that the speaker mount to her side, Cyrano 



242 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

is compelled to let Christian climb the ivy and take the 
kiss which the grotesque hero's love-making has won. 
The latter's consolation is that on the lips of Christian 
Roxane kisses the words Cyrano has just spoken. 

They are interrupted by a monk bringing a letter from 
Guiche to Roxane. Cyrano now makes his presence 
known to her as if he had just returned. The comte has 
lingered at the monastery, after the departure of his regi- 
ment for Arras, and desires to see Roxane at once. She 
pretends to read in the letter an order that the stupid 
monk shall at once marry her to Christian. Cyrano is 
posted before the house to detain any visitors, while the 
other three go inside for the ceremony. 

Left alone, Bergerac climbs to the balcony, pulls his hat 
over his eyes, and wraps his cloak about him. When the 
anxious Guiche enters, Cyrano by means of the branch 
of a tree swings himself down at the feet of the astonished 
comte. As a pretended voyager from the moon, the 
versatile Gascon manages to prevent Guiche from enter- 
ing the house until the newly married pair appear. "Say 
good-bye to your husband," then exclaims the angry 
comte. "I change my mind. His regiment shall go at 
once to Arras." 

Roxane in despair confides Christian to Cyrano's pro- 
tection, making her cousin promise — as he does most 
readily — that the youth will write to her often. 

Act IV 

The post of the Gascon cadets at the siege of Arras. 
When the tattered, half-starved soldiers at the sound of 



APPENDICES 



243 



shots stir from their early morning slumber, their captain 
reassures them, saying, "It is only Cyrano coming back." 
The latter, appearing over the breastworks, is scolded by 
Le Bret for thus risking his life so frequently. " I promised 
her," replies Bergerac, "that this handsome fellow should 
write often;" and he points to the sleeping Christian. 

The reveille is sounded, and the cadets awaken. When 
they grow almost mutinous with hunger, Cyrano, at the 
captain's request, rallies them out of their ill-humor with 
his ready wit and his moving eloquence. 

They observe Guiche approaching, foppishly clad, and 
re\ile him as a false Gascon. Resolved not to let him see 
that they suffer, they play at dice and cards. Their air 
of contentment enrages Guiche, who upbraids them for 
their criticism of his dress and conduct. He reminds 
them of his prowess in battle the day before, describing 
how he dropped his white scarf on the field and so escaped 
without attracting attention to his rank. 

"Henry IV," says Cyrano, "would never have con- 
sented, even though the enemy were overwhelming him, 
to have stripped himself of his white plume. Had I been 
present when your scarf fell — and this is where our types 
of courage differ, monsieur — I should have picked it up 
and worn it myself. Lend it to me: I'll wear it this 
evening and lead the assault." — "Gascon boasting!" 
retorts the comte. "You know well enough that the 
scarf lies at a point which grapeshot has been riddling 
ever since, and where nobody can go to get it." Where- 
upon Cyrano calmly draws the white scarf from his 
pocket, saying, "Here it is." 



244 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY -WRITING 

By way of revenge the enraged commander gives a 
signal which will, within half an hour, bring an assault of 
the Spaniards on this point in the entrenchments. Prepa- 
rations are made to sustain the attack. 

Christian asks Cyrano for another letter to Roxane. 
Bergerac has one ready. But there is a tear-stain on it, 
which arouses the youth's suspicions. 

Roxane arrives in a carriage driven by Ragueneau: 
she has prevailed on the gallantry of the Spanish officers 
to let her through their lines. She gives the cadets her 
handkerchief to serve as their company flag. They dis- 
cover that her carriage contains quantities of well- 
concealed provisions. Guiche returns, and they hide 
from him the newly-received supplies. As Roxane will 
not leave, he determines to remain and share the danger. 
The cadets thereupon relent, but their commander scorns 
"their leavings." " You're making progress!" says 
Bergerac, saluting him. 

Cyrano draws Christian aside and, troubled, explains 
to him that letters have gone to Roxane more often than 
the youth has known. In fact, twice a day the Gascon 
has risked his life to post a love missive to his cousin. It 
is these letters which have inspired her to come here 
through so many dangers. She tells Christian she loves 
him no longer for his beauty, but for his soul alone. She 
would still love him even if he were hideous. Christian, 
broken-hearted, bids Cyrano tell her all, that she may 
choose between them, and goes. 

Convinced by her that Roxane now really cares only for 
the soul that has dictated these letters, Cyrano, trembling 



APPENDICES 245 

with happiness, is about to reveal to her his bargain with 
Christian. At that moment, however, Le Bret brings 
word that the young soldier has been shot; and Bergerac 
murmurs, "It is ended. I can never tell her again!" A 
moment later, when Christian is brought in, dying, 
Cyrano whispers to him, "I have explained everything. 
She loves you still." 

In her dead husband's bosom Roxane finds the letter • 
it is stained now not only with the tears of Bergerac, but 
also with Christian's blood. 

The assault is on. Guiche carries off the fainting 
Roxane. Cyrano, brandishing the lance bearing her 
handkerchief, rallies his company. He has two deaths to 
avenge: Christian's and that of his own happiness. The 
Frenchmen charge into the ranks of the Spaniards, who 
are pouring over the embankment, Bergerac chanting his 
triolet: — 

" These are the Gascon cadets 
Of Carbon de Castel-Jaloux!" 

ActV 

The park of a Parisian convent, whither Roxane has 
retired to pass her widowhood; an autumn afternoon, 
fifteen years later than the date of Act IV. The nuns 
speak of Cyrano's long-standing custom of coming every 
Saturday to distract the grief of his cousin with his droll 
gossip. He is poor and too proud to accept aid, ill and 
broken. He is due on the stroke of the hour. 

Guiche comes, and Roxane assures him that she will 
continue to remain here, "vainly blonde." Sometimes it 



246 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

seems to her that Christian is only half-dead, that his 
love floats about her, living. 

Le Bret in anxiety interrupts. Cyrano, he says, is 
abandoned and friendless. Everywhere he attacks 
hypocrisy and cant, thus making for himself a multitude 
of enemies. Roxane feels confidence in her cousin's 
sword. But "solitude, hunger, December entering with 
wolf-steps into his dark chamber — they are the scoundrels 
who will more likely slay him. Every day he tightens his 
belt one hole more. His poor nose begins to take on the 
tones of old ivory." 

Guiche goes, unable to conceal an amicable envy for 
Bergerac's life of uncompromising integrity, and warning 
Le Bret that his old friend is in danger of assassination. 
A few moments later Ragueneau arrives and tells Le Bret 
that Cyrano has been wounded: a lackey has dropped a 
stick of wood on the Gascon's head. Without telling 
Roxane, the two friends hasten off to find the injured man. 

Roxane takes up her embroidery. The clock strikes. 
Is Cyrano going to be late for the first time? A dead leaf 
flutters down upon her embroidery-frame. Bergerac is 
announced. She does not look up from her work. He is 
very pale and feeble, but he forces a gay tone of voice. 
He has had a most troublesome Visitor, to whom he has 
said, "Excuse me, but to-day is Saturday, the day I must 
call at a certain place; nothing can make me fail. Return 
in an hour." He closes his eyes in a moment of weakness 
and pain. 

Rallied by Roxane, Cyrano teases a gentle nun, swearing 
he ate meat on Friday and granting her permission to pray 



APPENDICES 247 

for him this evening. "I have not waited for your per- 
mission/' replies the sister, as she goes. 

Then, struggling against his pain, he rattles off his 
"gazette" of amusing gossip, stopping abruptly when 
he comes to Saturday. For the first time Roxane looks 
up at him. Then she hastens to his side, but he reassures 
her — it is merely his old wound of Arras. 

Roxane produces Christian's last letter, and Cyrano 
claims the present fulfilment of her old promise to let him 
read it some day. Twilight is falling. His voice rings 
with passion as it did that night he spoke to her from 
beneath her balcony. It grows too dark for him to see, 
yet he continues to recite the fervent words of the letter 
which she, too, knows by heart. Roxane understands at 
last. " Why have you been silent all these fourteen years," 
she exclaims, "when on this letter which he did not write 
these tears were your tears?" — "This blood was his 
blood," replies Bergerac. 

Ragueneau and Le Bret enter in great apprehension. 
Cyrano takes off his hat, revealing his bandaged head, 
and finishes his "gazette" with: "And Saturday, the 
twenty-sixth, an hour before dinner, Monsieur de Bergerac 
died assassinated." His friends weep, as he swiftly 
summarizes his life of failure: he has won the laurel and 
the rose only for others. One hears the organ in the 
chapel. The moonlight descends. "I have loved but one 
being," wails Roxane, "and him I lose twice!" 

Delirium seizes Cyrano. He declaims scraps of his own 
compositions, and begs Roxane to let her mourning be 
"a little for him" too. With his back against a tree, he 



248 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

fights off his imaginary foes — Lies, Prejudices, Compro- 
mise, Cowardice, Folly. The Visitor he put off for an 
hour has returned for him. Cyrano dies, boasting that 
with a spotless white plume he will this night enter God's 
house. 



APPENDIX B 

Specimen Pages of the Manuscript of a Play 

As explained on page 206, there are two recognized 
forms for the typing of play manuscripts, both of which 
use red ink together with some other color, preferably 
black — though blue or purple is quite acceptable. Page 
250 shows a manuscript page in reduced facsimile as it 
appears when a combination red and black typewriter 
ribbon has been used. Page 251 illustrates a page in which 
the underscoring in red has been done with pen and ink. 



Act I) 

Booth 
Heavensl It reads like a fairy tale, doesn't -it? 

Henry 
2 don't know; does it? 

Booth 
Yes; and many thanks. I'll do my best not to let you re- 
gret it. Only, in the old fairy tale, you know, it always 

ended with the the young man's marrying the the rich 

old geezer's daughter'. 

Henry 

(Chuckling) 
And I'm the rich old geezer, eh? Well, I mightn't *a' been 

half as rich this minute if it wasn't for youi — ^Heighol 

(Sizes up Booth) 
Bow, I suppose my cantankerous daughter wouldn't have you, 

Piercy; not if I said anything to her about it. But if she 

would and you was willin' 

(Helen and Booth exchange eloquent glances) 
why, you're just about the feller I'd want her to have. 

(Helen dances a little skirt dance of delight between 
the door L and the screen. Then she darts into 
the adjoining room, being observed only by Booth) 

Booth 

(With spontaneity) 

Say, Boss, put her there again! 

(Another handshake) 
Do you know, you and I are getting to be better friends 



Act II) 



-36- 



GHAV3S. Yes. ( Turns to dictionary) That's all. 

(Ellen, though curious T continues reading : 
in an undertone to her father, Marlin 
and John. Graves opens the diction - 
ary, starts at si g ht of the note, 
snatches it up wilh trembling finger s 
and reads it. His fury rises. Aft er 
a pause, crumpling the note , he turn s 
to Burton and speaks with an effort jf 



GRAVES. 


Burton I 




(Startled by his tone, the others turn and 




regard Graves curiously) 


BURTOW. 


Yes, sir. 


GRAVES. 


Where's Sam? 


BURTON. 


He went out, sir 


GRAVED 


Went out? 


3?URT0H f 


Y-yes, sir. About a quarter of an hour ago 


GRAVES. 


Where to? 


BURTOH. 


He didn't say, sir. 



(Graves turns away helplessly. Burto n 
listens and tften exits t'. Grave s 
"walics up ana aown, wringing hi a hands ) 

MEAD. Anything wrong? 

GRAVES (Lamely) Ho, no. Don't mind me^ Marlin' s 

proposition's all right — 



(Pause. Susan enters R and is troubled at 
sight of uraves's emotion J, 



fire! 



SUSAH ( Approaches him ) Father I 

GRAVES ( Unable longer to restrain himself) Hell ' s 

JSSABu Christopher! 



APPENDIX C 

List of Plays 

The following miscellaneous list of plays available in 
English includes such as would be likely to interest the 
student of the technique of the drama: 

Emile Augier, The Post-Scriptum. 

Emile Augier, The House of Fourchambault. 

Granville Barker, The Madras House. 

Granville Barker, The Voysey Inheritance. 

Granville Barker, Waste. 

J. M. Barrie, The Admirable Crichton. 

J. M. Barrie, Half Hours. 

A. Bennett and E. Knoblauch, Milestones. 

Arnold Bennett, What the Public Wants. 

Rudolph Besier, Don. 

Bjornstjerne Bjornson, A Lesson in Marriage. 

Eugene Brieux, Maternity. 

Eugene Brieux, The Red Robe. 

Eugene Brieux, The Three Daughters of M. Dupont. 

Alfred Capus, Brignol and His Daughter. 

C. Haddon Chambers, The Tyranny of Tears. 

H. H. Davies, The Mollusc. 

Richard Harding Davis, The Galloper. 

Jose Echegaray, The Great Galeoto. 

J. B. Fagan, The Earth. 

Clyde Fitch, The Truth. 



APPENDICES 253 

J. O. Francis, Change. 

John Galsworthy, The Eldest Son. 

John Galsworthy, The Pigeon. 

John Galsworthy, The Silver Box. 

John Galsworthy, Strife. 

Giuseppe Giacosa, The Stronger. 

Lady Gregory, Short Plays. 

Angel Guimera, Marta of the Lowlands. 

Gerhart Hauptmann, The Beaver Coat. 

Gerhart Hauptmann, The Conflagration. 

Gerhart Hauptmann, Rose Bernd. 

Gerhart Hauptmann, The Weavers. 

Paul Hervieu, Know Thyself. 

Paul Hervieu, The Labyrinth. 

Stanley Houghton, Hindle Wakes. 

Victor Hugo, Hernani. 

Victor Hugo, Ruy Bias. 

Henrik Ibsen, A DolVs House. 

Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People. 

Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts. 

Henrik Ibsen, Pillars of Society. 

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm. 

J. K. Jerome, The Passing of the Third Floor Back. 

Henry Arthur Jones, The Liars. 

Henry Arthur Jones, Michael and His Lost Angel. 

Henry Arthur Jones, Mrs. Dane's Defence. 

Henry Arthur Jones, Whitewashing Julia. 

C. R. Kennedy, The Servant in the House. 

Charles Kenyon, Kindling. 

Percy Mackaye, The Scarecrow. 



254 THE TECHNIQUE OF PLAY WRITING 

Maurice Maeterlinck, The Blue Bird. 

Maurice Maeterlinck, Monna Vanna. 

J. Hartley Manners, The House Next Door. 

George Middleton, Embers (and other one-act plays). 

Langdon Mitchell, The New York Idea. 

William Vaughn Moody, The Great Divide. 

L. N. Parker, Disraeli. 

A. W. Pinero, The Gay Lord Quex. 

A. W. Pinero, His House in Order. 

A. W. Pinero, Iris. 

A. W. Pinero, The Magistrate. 

A. W. Pinero, Mid-Channel. 

A. W. Pinero, The Thunderbolt. 

A. W. Pinero, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray 

Edmond Rostand, L'Aiglon. 

Edmond Rostand, Chantecler. 

Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac. 

Edmond Rostand, The Romancers. 

Victorien Sardou, The Black Pearl. 

Victorien Sardou, Diplomacy. 

Victorien Sardou, Divorqons. 

Victorien Sardou, Patrie! 

Eugene Scribe, A Scrap of Paper. 

G. B. Shaw, Arms and the Man. 

G. B. Shaw, Candida. 

G. B. Shaw, Fannys First Play. 

G. B. Shaw, Man and Superman. 

G. B. Shaw, Pygmalion. 

G. B. Shaw, You Never Can Tell. 

Edward Sheldon, The Nigger. 



APPENDICES 255 

Edward Sheldon, Romance. 

Githa Sowerby, Rutherford and Son. 

August Strindberg, The Father. 

Hermann Sudermann, The Joy of Living. 

Hermann Sudermann, Magda. 

Hermann Sudermann, The Vale of Content. 

J. M. Synge, Deirdre of the Sorrows. 

J. M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World. 

J. M. Synge, Riders to the Sea. 

J. M. Synge, The Well of the Saints. 

B. Tarkington and H. L. Wilson, The Man from Home. 

Augustus Thomas, As a Man Thinks. 

Augustus Thomas, Arizona. 

Augustus Thomas, The Witching Hour. 

Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband. 

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest. 

Oscar Wilde, A Woman of no Importance. 

Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan. 

W. B. Yeats, The Hour-Glass. 

W. B. Yeats, The Land of Heart's Desire. 

Israel Zangwill, The Melting Pot. 



APPENDIX D 

List of Helpful Books 

The beginner at play writing will find the following 
books for the most part interesting and helpful: — 

William Archer, Play Making. 

Elizabeth Baker, The Play of To-day. 

George P. Baker (announced), The Technique of the Drama. 

Richard Burton, The New American Drama. 

W. P. Eaton, At the New Theatre and Others. 

Gustav Freytag, The Technique of the Drama. 

E. E. Hale, Dramatists of To-day. 

Clayton Hamilton, Studies in Stagecraft. 

Brander Matthews, A Study of the Drama. 

H. K. Moderwell, The Theatre of To-day. 

M. J. Moses, The American Dramatist. 

Richard G. Moulton, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Thinker. 

Arthur Huntington Nason, James Shirley, Dramatist. 

Ludwig Lewisohn, The Modern Drama. 

"Chief Contemporary Dramatists," edited by Thomas 
H. Dickinson, is a convenient collection of twenty modern 
plays, including "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," "The 
Witching Hour," "Riders to the Sea," "The Vale of Con- 
tent," and "Know Thyself." 

"The Continental Drama of To-day," "The British 
and American Dramas of To-day," and " Contemporary 



APPENDICES 257 

French Dramatists," all by Barrett H. Clark, are valuable 
reference books. " Three Modern Plays from the French " 
includes translations by Mr. Clark of Lavedan's "The 
Prince d'Aurec," Lemaitre's "The Pardon," and Donnay's 
"The Other Danger." Mr. Clark is also the editor of an 
important and rapidly increasing series of plays published 
by Samuel French. Among the authors already repre- 
sented are Augier, Meilhac and Halevy, Hervieu, Tchek- 
hoff, Giacosa, Sardou, Capus, and Bernard. 

Another noteworthy series of plays is that published 
under the auspices of the Drama League of America, by 
Doubleday, Page & Company. The list now includes 
Charles Kenyon's "Kindling," Echegaray's "The Great 
Galeoto," Sardou's "Patriel" Francis's "Change," and 
other interesting examples of play technique. 



APPENDIX E 

Advice to Playwrights Who Are Sending Plays to 
the Abbey Theatre, Dublin 1 

"The Abbey Theatre is a subsidized theatre with an 
educational object. It will, therefore, be useless as a rule 
to send it plays intended as popular entertainment and 
that alone, or originally written for performance by some 
popular actor at the popular theatres. A play to be 
suitable for performance at the Abbey should contain 
some criticism of life, founded on the experience or per- 
sonal observation of the writer, or some vision of life, of 
Irish life by preference, important from its beauty or from 
some excellence of style; and this intellectual quality is 
not more necessary to tragedy than to the gayest comedy. 

"We do not desire propagandist plays, nor plays 
written mainly to serve some obvious moral purpose; for 
art seldom concerns itself with those interests or opinions 
that can be defended by argument, but with realities of 
emotion and character that become self-evident when 
made vivid to the imagination. 

"The dramatist should also banish from his mind the 
thought that there are some ingredients, the love-making 
of the popular stage for instance, especially fitted to give 
dramatic pleasure; for any knot of events, where there is 
passionate emotion and clash of will, can be made the 

1 Quoted in Our Irish Theatre, by Lady Gregory. (G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons.) 



APPENDICES 259 

subject matter of a play, and the less like a play it is at 
the first sight the better play may come of it in the end. 
Young writers should remember that they must get all 
their effects from the logical expression of their subject, 
and not by the addition of extraneous incidents; and that 
a work of art can have but one subject. A work of art, 
though it must have the effect of nature, is art because it 
is not nature, as Goethe said: and it must possess a unity 
unlike the accidental profusion of nature. 

"The Abbey Theatre is continually sent plays which 
show that their writers have not understood that the 
attainment of this unity by what is usually a long shaping 
and reshaping of the plot, is the principal labour of the 
dramatist, and not the writing of the dialogue. 

" Before sending plays of any length, writers would 
often save themselves some trouble by sending a scenario, 
or scheme of the plot, together with one completely 
written act, and getting the opinion of the Reading Com- 
mittee as to its suitability before writing the whole play." 



INDEX 



Action, x, xi, xviii, xxi- 
xxv, 2, 3, 24, 38, 48, 75- 
76, 81, 134, 217-218, 223. 

Actors (See Star Parts). 

Ade, George, The Col- 
lege Widow, 133-134; The 
County Chairman, 134; 
Mrs. Peckham's Carouse, 
196. 

Andersen, Hans Chris- 
tian, 49. 

"Apart," The, xiv, 123, 
126, 174. 

Archer, Frank, 226. 

Archer, William, 26-28, 
79, 94, 98-100, 122, 201, 
256. 

Aristotle, ix, x, xiii, 2, 

37, 38, 134, 158. 
Armstrong, Paul, Alias 

Jimmy Valentine, 13 ; The 

Deep Purple, 14, 187; The 

Greyhound, 101. 
"Aside," The, (See 

"Apart"). 
Atjbignac, Abbe d', 86-87. 
Augier, Emile, 44, 252, 

257. 

B 

Baker, Elizabeth, Chains, 

21, 27, 135, 162. 
Balfour, Graham, 63. 
Balzac, Honore de, 44. 



Barker, H. Granville, i- 
2, 108, 171; The Madras 
House, 112, 189, 252; 
Waste, 20-21, 252; The 
Voysey Inheritance, 252. 

Barrie, Sir James M., 6, 
252; The Legend of Leon- 
ora, 20, 182; The Twelve- 
Pound Look, 196; A Slice 
of Life, 80, 199. 

Beginning the Play, 49-51. 

Bennett, Arnold, The 
Great Adventure, 162; 
Milestones, 11, 1 50-1 51, 
252; What the Public 
Wants, 182, 252. 

Bernard, Tristan, 257; 
Le Danseur inconnu, 125. 

Bernstein, Henri, 18, 96; 
The Assault, 97; Israel, 
97, 163; La Rafale, 186; 
The Thief, 40. 

Besant, Sir Walter, i, 133. 

Besier, Rudolf, Don, 218, 
252; Lady Patricia, 52. 

Biggers, Earl Derr, In- 
side the Lines, 138-142. 

Bisson, Alexandre, 
Madame X, 184. 

Blank Verse, 5, 167-168. 

Boucicault, Dion, 224. 

Brieux, Eugene, 6, 252. 

Broadhurst, George, 
Bought and Paid For, 57; 
Innocent, 50; To-day, 188. 



INDEX 



26l 



Brokers, Play (See Placing 

the Play). 
Browne, Porter Emerson, 

A Fool There Was, 184, 

188; The Spendthrift, 184. 
Brunetiere, Ferdinand, 

ix, x, xiii, xxiv, 24, III- 

112, 181. 
Buchanan, Thompson, The 

Bridal Path, 1 1 1 ; Life, 50, 

79- 
Burton, Richard, 212, 256. 

"Business" (See Panto- 
mime). 
Butcher, S. H., 48. 
Bynner, Witter, Tiger, 168. 



Calderon, 39. 

Chambers, C. Haddon, 
252; Passers-by, 14, 15, 
124. 

Characterization, xvi, xvii, 
4, 25, 33-35, 40-41, 50, 
55, 130, 131, 134-155, 
170, 171, 173-174, 179, 
182, 188, 195, 198, 200, 
216. 

Character-plays, 13, 14, 17, 
134, 181, 188-190. 

Characters, xi, xviii, xxi, 
xxiv, xxx, 2-4, 16, 17, 
24, 29-32, 34, 37-39, 51, 
52, 56, 59, 60, 63, 65, 71- 
72, 77, 86, 91, 109, 115, 
119, 121, 122, 133-163, 
189, 190-192, 202, 209- 
210, 217, 220, 222. 



Climax, xiv, xxi, 30, 94, 96, 
106-116, 136, 137, 186, 
187, 189, 203. 

Cohan, George M., 65, 
223-224; Broadway Jones, 
213; Hello, Broadway! 97; 
Get-Rich-Quick Walling- 
ford, 81; The Miracle 
Man, 19; Seven Keys to 
Baldpate, 56. 

Coincidence, 68, 71, 90, 

114, 121-126, 186. 
Coleby, Wilfred T., The 

Headmaster, 56. 

Coleridge, S. T\, 104. 

Collins, Wilkie, 220. 

Comedy, 25, 53, 55-58, 121. 
122, 126, 129-130, 134, 
135, 137-143, 181-183, 
189. 

Comic Relief (See Humor). 

Complication, 63-73, 85- 86. 

Conflict, xi, xiv, xxii-xxv, 
24, 25-29, 37, 43-44, 64, 
70-72, 81, 86, 95, 114, 

115, 181, 189, 192, 200, 
214, 258-259. 

Connotation, ^$ } 174-179, 

195- 
Consistency (See Logic). 
Continuity, 42-45, 58. 
Contract, The, 232-233. 
Conventionalities, Stage, 41, 

127-131. 
Conventions, xn, xiii, 118- 

131- 
Cooper, Frederic Taber, 
1, 212. 



262 



INDEX 



Copyright, 227-228. 
Crisis, xxii-xxv, 26, 30, 37, 

63. 

Croisset, Francis de, Ar- 
sene Lupin, 51, 97, 98, 
187; The Hawk, 81, 184. 

Cross, Wilbur L., 144. 

D 

Davies, Hubert Henry, 
Outcast, 20, 81, 160, 218; 
Mrs. Goringe's Necklace, 
15; The Mollusc, 252. 

Davis, Richard Harding, 
The Dictator, 14; The 
Galloper, 252; Miss Civ- 
ilization, 198-199. 

DeMille, W. E., Food, 
199; The Woman, 90, 124. 

Denouement, 58-59, 106, 109- 
116, 136, 158, 187, 203, 
215, 222. 

Devices, 118-131. 

Dialogue, x, xvn-xvrn, 4, 
5, 18, 24, 25, 32-35, 39, 
60, 75, 79-82, 91, IQ 8, 
113, 119, 166-180, 185, 
195, 204, 218, 220, 259. 

Dryden, John, 63. 

Dumas, Alexandre, fits, 
rx, xv, 9, 29, 44, 58-59, 
86, 94, 104, 108, 142-143, 
166, 220; La Dame aux 
Cam6lias, 51, 224; Le Fils 
naturel, 9. 

Dumas, Alexandre, pere, 
17, 108. 



Economy, 33, 48-49, 77"78, 

130, 154-155, 167, 170- 

172, 179-180, 195, 205, 

219, 220, 222. 
Eliot, George, 32. 
Emphasis, 32, 172. 
"Entrances," 216-217. 
Ervine, St. John G., 137; 

The Magnanimous Lover, 

41. 
Esenweln, J. Berg, xvt- 

xxvi, 106, 113, 201. 
"Exits," 216-217, 221. 
Exposition, 67, 75-83, 91, 

113, 172, 195, 203, 213- 

214, 220. 



Fable (See Plot). 
Fantasy, 54, 182. 
Farce, 14, 25, 40, 53, 55-58, 

iio-iii, 121, 126, 134, 

135, 137, 181-184, 187- 

188, 223-224. 
Field, Salisbury, Twin 

Beds, 14, 187. 

FlLON, AUGUSTIN, 43, 44- 

45- 
Fitch, Clyde, 108, 173- 

174, 225; Captain Jinks, 

40; The City, 19, 57; 

The Truth, 252. 
Forbes, James, The Chorus 

Lady, 58; The Traveling 

Salesman, 161. 



INDEX 



263 



Ford, Harriet, The Argyle 
Case, 187; The Dummy, 
91 ; Polygamy, 20. 



Galsworthy, John, 108, 
253; The Eldest Son, 41, 
253; The Pigeon, 20, 

253- 
Gardiner, J. H., 48, 194. 

Genres, Confusion of, 53- 

58. 
Gift, The dramatist's, 1, 3- 

7, 85, 92, 94, 101. 
Gillette, William, Held 

by the Enemy, 52; Secret 

Service, 52; Sherlock 

Holmes, 187. 
Goethe, 39, 40, 259. 
Gozzi, G., xi, 39. 
Gregory, Lady, 137, 196, 

253. 

H 

Hamilton, Clayton, xvm, 
xxiv, 256; The Big Idea, 

55, 159- 
Hamilton, Cosmo, xv; The 

Blindness of Virtue, 21. 
"Happy Ending," The, 57, 

60, 162-164. 
Harcourt, Cyril, A, Pair 

of Silk Stockings, 121, 

159-160. 
Hardy, Thomas, Tess of 

the d'Urbervilles, 122. 



Hastings, B. Macdonald, 
That Sort, 160-161; The 
New Sin, 18. 

Hauptmann, Gerhart, 42- 
43, 168, 153; The Beaver 
Coat, 150, 153; The Con- 
flagration, 150, 253; The 
Weavers, 148-150, 189, 
253. 

Hegel, G. W. F., ix, x. 

Henderson, Archibald, 

25. 
Henley, W. E., Macaire, 

5 1 * 5 6 - 
Hennequin, Alfred, 181. 

Henry, O., 13. 

Hervieu, Paul, 221, 253, 

257; Know Thyself, 253, 

256. 
Holz, Arno, 42. 
Houghton, Stanley, Hin- 

dle Wakes, 20, 41, 135, 

253; Trust the People, 142. 
Ho wells, W. D., The Rise 

of Silas Lapham, 79. 
Hugo, Victor, Hernani, 14, 

253; Lucrece Borgia, 16; 

Le Roi s' amuse, 16; Ruy 

Bias, 16, 20, 125, 253. 
Humor, xiv, 52, 53, 69, 72, 

75, 115, 119-121, 131, 

166, 187, 195, 213. 

I 

Ibsen, Henrlk, xiv, 6, 50, 
59, 151-152, 222, 253; A 
Doll's House, 12-13, 151- 
152, 253; Ghosts, 11, 26, 



264 



INDEX 



27, 253; The Lady from 
the Sea, 182; The Master 
Builder, 19; Rosmersholm, 
50, 253; The Wild Duck, 
60. 

Ideas, Plays of, 181, 190- 
192. 

Illusion (See Verisimili- 
tude). 

Incident, 4-5, 14, 24, 259. 

Irish Theatre, The, 136-137, 
142, 196, 258-259. 

J 

James, Henry, 130-13 i, 
189-190. 

Jerome, Jerome K., Esther 
Castways, 142 ; The Pass- 
ing of the Third Floor 
Back, 19, 188, 253. 

Jones, Henry Arthur, 18, 
27, 253; Mrs. Dane's De- 
fense, 41, 253; Joseph 
Entangled, 20; The Liars, 
41, 253; Lydia Gilmore, 
53 ; Mary Goes First, 161 ; 
Michael and His Lost An- 
gel, 40, 58, 253; We Can't 
Be as Bad as All That, 41 ; 
Whitewashing Julia, 41, 
253- 



Kennedy, Charles Rann, 
The Servant in the House, 
19, 253; The Winterfeast, 
179. 



Kenyon, Charles, Kin- 
dling, 14, 19, 253, 257. 

Klein, Charles, 15; The 
District Attorney, 15; The 
Lion and the Mouse, 15; 
The Third Degree, 15. 

Knoblauch, Edward, The 
Headmaster, 56; Marie- 
Odile, 79; Milestones, 11, 
150-151, 252; My Lady's 
Dress, 48, 55. 

Knowles, J. Sheridan, 
Virginius, 14. 



LeBlanc, Maurice, Ar- 
sene Lupin, 51,97,98, 187. 

Lessing, G. E., ix, 12, 97, 
181. 

Logic, xi, 3, 4, 5, 16, 29-30, 
41-42,58-60,86,122,14,3 
154, 158-164, 203-204, 
216-217, 222, 259. 

Lord, Chester S., 26. 

Lytton, Bulwer, Riche- 
lieu, 75. 

M 

MacHugh, Augustin, Of- 
ficer 666, 14, 56, 224, 230. 

Maeterlinck, Maurice, 
6, 40, 191, 254; The Blue 
Bird, 20, 254. 

Mack, Willard, Kick In, 
88, 187; Vindication, 199- 
200. 

Mackaye, Percy, 168, 253; 
To-morrow, 179. 



INDEX 



265 



Managers (See Placing the 

Play). 
Manners, J. Hartley, The 

House Next Door, 52, 254; 

The Woman Intervenes, 

198. 
Manuscript, Specimen 

Pages of, 249-251. 
Marlowe, Christopher, 

40. 
Massinger, Philip, A New 

Way to Pay Old Debts, 135. 
Mason, A. E. W., Green 

Stockings, 42, 213. 
Matthews, Brander, 25, 

80, 151, 256. 
Maupassant, Guy de, 177. 
Mayo, Margaret, Twin 

Beds, 14, 187. 
Megrue, Roi Cooper, // 

Pays to Advertise, 21, 99; 

Under Cover, 56, 88, 96, 

98-99, no, 120, 187. 
Melodrama, 14, 25, 40, 55- 

58,91,121,126,129,134, 

135, 137, 162, 163, 164, 

181-187. 
Mise en sc£ne (See Setting). 

MODERWELL, H. K., XIX, 

256. 

Moffat, Graham, A Scrape 

o 1 the Pen, 13. 
Moliere, 39, 40, 166; Tar- 

tuffe, 144, 151. 
Molnar, Ferenc, The 

Phantom Rival, 20, 48, 81, 

174. 
Monologue (See Soliloquy). 



Montgomery, James, 
Ready Money, xxvi, 56, 
in. 

Moody, William Vaughn, 
The Great Divide, 16, 231, 

254. 
Moore, Carlisle, Stop 

Thief, 223-224. 
Motivation (See Logic). 
Murray, T. C, 137; The 

Drone, 135. 
Mystification (See Secret). 

N 

Neilson, William Allan, 

144. 
Nerval, Gerard de, 39. 
Norris, Frank, 85. 
Novelty of Plot, 39-41. 

O 

O'Higgins, Harvey J., The 

Argyle Case, 187; The 
Dummy, 91; Polygamy, 
20. 
One- Act Play, The, 194- 
201, 230. 



Pantomime, x-xi, xiv, 
xvm, 5, 24, 25, 32-33, 35, 
39, 87, 108, 166-167, 174, 
177-179, 221. 

Parker, H. T., 18. 

Parker, Louis N., 254; 
The Highway of Life, 49; 
Pomander Walk, 135, 188. 



266 



INDEX 



Patterson, Joseph, Me- 
dill, The Fourth Estate, 
162-163. 

Pellissier, Georges, 9, 
16-17, *66. 

Perry, Bliss, 37, 78, 106, 
108-109, I 44 -I 45- 

Phillips, Stephen, 40, 168. 

Picard, Andre, UAnge 
gardien, 96, 101-103, 152- 
153, 175- 

Pinero, Sir Arthur Wing, 
xii, xxx, 6, 16, 153, 221, 
223, 254; The Gay Lord 
Quex, 96, 254; His House 
in Order, 79, 254; Mid- 
Channel, 57, 254; Pre- 
serving Mr. Panmure, 56; 
The Second Mrs. Tan- 
queray, 20, 27, 50, 123, 
161, 254, 256; The Thun- 
derbolt, 20, 53, 108, 128, 
255. 

Placing the Play, 204-205, 
208, 226-234. 

Plot, xvii, xxi, 2, 3, 5, II- 
12, 17-18, 24-74, 112, 119, 
121, 122, 130, 131, 135, 
136, 154, 161-164, 170, 
171, 179, 182, 188, 190- 
192, 195, 202, 203, 212, 
215, 217, 220, 259. 

Plot-and- Character Harmo- 
ny, 2, 25, 29-30, 41-42, 
60, 109-110, 158-164, 222, 
259 (See Logic). 

Plot Novelty, 17-18, 39-41. 



" Plot-ridden " Characters 
(See Plot-and-Character 
Harmony). 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 37, 158, 

194-195- 
Pollock, Channing, 88. 
Polti, Georges, 39. 
Preparation, xrv, 67, 85-92, 

114, 220. 
Presbrey, Eugene W., 

Raffles, 98, 187. 
Probability (See Logic). 
Problem Play, The, 52-53, 

129. 
Production, 233-234. 
"Properties," 88, 90. 
Proportion, 32, 35, 222. 

R 

Realism, xi, xvh-xix, 42- 
45, 126, 135-143, 164, 
168-170, 172, 173, 174, 
178-179, 183-186, 202- 
203, 218-219. 

Regnier, Henri de, 103. 

Reizenstein, Elmer L., 
On Trial, 48, 50-51, 78, 
82, 91, 101, no, 224. 

Robertson, Tom, Caste, 

135- 
Rostand, Edmond, 6, 168, 
210, 221, 254; UAiglon, 
19, 254; Chantecler, 182, 
223, 254; Cyrano de Ber- 
gerac, 91, 175-176, 177" 
178, 235-248, 254; La 
Samaritaine, 127, 174. 



INDEX 



267 



"Rules," Dramatic, xii- 
xvi, xxv-xxvi, 1, 7, 9, 

220-223. 



Sarcey, Francisque, IX, 
x, xn, 4, 53-54, 55> 59, 
75, 85, 92, 104, 107-108, 
in, 118, 125, 127, 142- 
143, 160, 166, 178-179, 
180, 203. 

Sardou, Victorien, 4, 18, 
186, 254, 257; Le Croco- 
dile, 54; Divorgons, 40, 
254; Ft dor a, 178; 
Madame Sans-Gene, 210. 

Satire, 53, 54, 182, 199. 

Scarborough, George, 
What Is Love? 19, 20. 

Scenario, 59-60, 92, 201- 
205, 235-248, 259. 

Scenery (See Setting). 

Schiller, xi, 39. 

Scribe, Eugene, 18, 44, 75, 
81, 88, 186, 254. 

Secret (Kept from Audi- 
ence) xv, 97-105. 

Self-criticism, 204, 212-225. 

Setting, xix- xxi, 48-49, 
220, 222. 

Shakespeare, xix, 39, 104, 
130, 223; As You Like It, 
xx, 26, 27, 151; Hamlet, 
xviii, 10, n, 19, 26, 27, 
108, 118-119, 170; Julius 
Ccesar, 108; King Lear, 
26, 27; Macbeth, 9-10, 11, 



19, 108, 203; The Mer- 
chant of Venice, 118; 
Othello, 26, 27, 144. 

Shaw, George Bernard, 
6, 40, 254; Candida, 199, 
254; Fannys First Play, 
120, 169, 182, 218, 254; 
How He Lied to Her Hus- 
band, 199; Man and Su- 
perman, 11, 40, 254; Pyg- 
malion, 20, 218, 254; You 
Never Can Tell, 21, 254. 

Sheldon, Edward, 225; 
The Garden of Paradise, 
49; The High Road, 50, 
150; The Nigger, 186, 
254; Romance, 40, 255. 

Sims, George R., The 
Lights o J London, in, 
185-186. 

Sismondi, J. C. L. de, 75, 
118. 

Situation, xi, 4-5, 39, 136, 
213. 

Soliloquy, xiv, 123, 126, 
127, 174. 

Solution (See Denouement). 

Sophocles, 39; (Edipus 
Rex, 26, 27. 

Sowerby, Githa, Ruther- 
ford and Son, 146, 255. 

Spencer, Herbert, x, 222. 

Stage Directions, 206-210, 
219. 

Stapleton, John, A Gen- 
tleman of Leisure, 124. 

Star Parts, 51, 219, 226, 
227, 229-230, 234. 



268 



INDEX 



Stevenson, Robert Louis, 
x, xxx, 24, 63, 130; 
Macaire, 51, 56. 

Stock Companies, 231-232. 

Story (See Plot). 

Story-play, The, 13, 14, 33- 
34, 134, 181. 

Strong, Austin, The 
Drums of Oude, 196, 197. 

Sub-plot, The, 52, 11 8- 119, 
130. 

Sudermann, Hermann, 
221, 255; Magda (Hei- 
mat), 20, 41, 255; Mori- 
turi, 196. 

Surprise, xiv, 86, 90, 94- 
105, 114, 115, 189, 203. 

Suspense, xiv, xxv, 38, 86, 
94-105, 106-109, ii4, H5> 
189, 203, 220. 

Sutro Alfred, The Man 
in Front, 197-198. 

Symmetry, 52, 60. 

Synge, John Millington, 
137, 255; The Playboy of 
the Western World, 100, 
I 79> 2 555 Riders to the 
Sea, 196, 255, 256; The 
Well of the Saints, 20, 
255- 

T 

Tarkington, Booth, Beau- 
ty and the Jacobin, 197; 
The Gentleman from In- 
diana, 104; The Man 
from Home, 125, 255. 

Tension (See Suspense). 



Theme, xvn, xxii, 9-21, 
29-30, 67, 113, 114, 215, 
217, 221. 

Thesis (See Theme). 

Thomas, A. E., The Big 
Idea, 55, 159. 

Thomas, Augustus, 28-29, 
76-77, 87-90, 170, 221, 
255, 256; Arizona, 12, 
161, 255; As a Man 
Thinks, 12, 82, 89-90, 
123-124, 128, 171 -172, 
217, 255; Mere Man, 225; 
The Model, 124, 225; The 
Witching Hour 11, 12, 65- 
72, 113-116, 231, 255, 
256. 

Tragedy, 25, 40, 53, 55-58, 
121, 122, 134, 135, 137, 
181-183, 189. 

"Triangle of Information," 
The, 88-90. 

Trollope, Anthony, 133. 

Turgenieff, I. S., 130-13 1. 

Types, 133-135, 144-146, 

153-155- 
Typewriting the Play, 205- 
208, 219, 221, 249-251. 

U 

Underplot (See Sub-plot). 
Unity, 17, 32, 52-60, 220, 259. 
Urban, Joseph, 49. 



Vaudeville, 54, 78-79, 196- 

200, 213, 230. 
Vega, Lope de, 181, 224. 



INDEX 



269 



Veiller, Bayard, Within 
the Law, 14, 99, 176-177, 
187. 

Verisimilitude, 5, 55, 58, 
130, 131, 133, 144. 

Verse, Blank, 5, 167-168. 

Vigny, Alfred de, 17. 

W 

Walkxey, A. B., 9. 

Wallace, Edward, The 
Switchboard, 127. 

Walter, Eugene, The 
Easiest Way, xxv, 58, 
154, 164; Paid in Full, 
57-58, 231; The Trail of 
the Lonesome Pine, 179. 

Ward, A. W., 3, 112. 

Wilde, Oscar, 120, 179; 
The Importance of Being 



Earnest, 14, 255; Lady 
Windermere's Fan, 120, 
161, 255; A Woman of No 
Importance, 20, 255. 
Wilson, Harry Leon, The 
Man from Home, 125, 

255- 

Wit (See Humor). 

Wodehouse, P. G., A Gen- 
tleman of Leisure, 124. 



Yeats, W. B., 137, 196. 



Zangwill, Israel, The 
Melting Pot, 179, 255; 
The War God, 168. 

Zola, £mile, 32. 



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